Daddy Long Legs (1955) on Netflix
Approved19552h 6mMusicalRomance
Jervis Pendleton III, a rich American, meets Julie André at a French orphanage and secretly funds her college studies in New England. She writes to her unknown benefactor, Daddy Long Legs.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.7/104,630 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Jervis Pendleton III, a rich American traveling in France, stops at an orphanage and meets Julie André, a cheerful resident of eighteen. Conscious of the years between them, he keeps his name to himself and pays for her studies at a college in New England. Julie settles at the school and writes often to the benefactor she has never seen, but no reply from him ever comes. The other orphans had described the long shadow he cast, so she nicknames him Daddy Long Legs. Three years on, Jervis comes to a college dance and meets her again, his identity still hidden.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Leslie Caron said Fred Astaire shot in one take a difficult scene that director Jean Negulesco had scheduled a full day for, then filled the leftover time with an unrehearsed dance number he led her through in a single take.
- Work on Daddy Long Legs halted in July 1954 when Fred Astaire's wife became ill with lung cancer, and she died that September. Fox sought a replacement for Astaire, but too much money had already been spent, so he returned and completed the film.
- Producer Darryl F. Zanuck wanted singer-actress Mitzi Gaynor as the female lead, but Fred Astaire insisted on Leslie Caron, then under contract to MGM and loaned to Fox for the film.
- The only time Fred Astaire's singing voice was dubbed came in the "Daydream Sequence", where his comic square-dance routine as a Texan was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft.
- Daddy Long Legs was Fred Astaire's first film in CinemaScope widescreen. He explored the extra space with assistant choreographer Dave Robel and later parodied the format in the "Stereophonic Sound" number of Silk Stockings (1957).
- Daddy Long Legs was the first of three consecutive Fred Astaire films set in France or with a French theme, followed by Funny Face and Silk Stockings, part of a vogue for French-themed musicals begun by Gene Kelly's An American in Paris (1951).
