Daddy Long Legs (1931 film)

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Daddy Long Legs
Daddy Long Legs (1931) Movie Poster.jpg
Film poster, 1931
Directed by Alfred Santell
Written byNovel:
Jean Webster
Screenplay:
S.N. Behrman
Sonya Levien
Alfred Santell
Produced by Sol M. Wurtzel
Starring Janet Gaynor
Warner Baxter
Una Merkel
John Arledge
Cinematography Lucien N. Andriot
Edited by Ralph Dietrich
Music by Hugo Friedhofer
Production
company
Release date
  • June 5, 1931 (1931-06-05)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$987,000 (U.S. and Canada rentals) [1]

Daddy Long Legs (1931) is an American pre-Code film directed by Alfred Santell and starring Janet Gaynor and Warner Baxter. The story involves an orphan who is taken under the wing of a wealthy benefactor. [2]

Contents

The original story, written in 1912 by Jean Webster, compared the childhood of the wealthy to that of orphanage children. Although suffering under a tough matron, Judy Abbott (Janet Gaynor) manages to cope and help the other orphans through intelligence and hard work, and the wealthy Jervis Pendleton (Warner Baxter), who is the benefactor, can't help admiring his young charge. Yet, she doesn't know it's he who is sponsoring her schooling, even when they meet, through Jervis' niece, who is Judy's roommate, and the girl, who was once alone, has to choose between their growing affection and a younger suitor. [3]

Janet Gaynor Janet Gaynor Argentinean Magazine AD.jpg

Cast

Production

Janet Gaynor had won the first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1928 and Warner Baxter had won the second Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona by the time Daddy Long Legs was released. The screenplay was based on the stage play Daddy Long-Legs by Jean Webster. [3]

Fox made French and Italian dubbed versions of the film and successfully sued a Dutch company for making a film based on the same material. [4]

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Dear Enemy is the 1915 sequel to Jean Webster's 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. It was among the top 10 best sellers in the U.S. in 1916. The story is presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's classmate and best friend in Daddy-Long-Legs. Among the recipients of the letters are Judy; Jervis Pendleton, Judy's husband and the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new superintendent can be installed; Gordon Hallock, a wealthy Congressman and Sallie's later fiancé; and the orphanage's doctor, embittered Scotsman Robin 'Sandy' MacRae. Webster employs the epistolary structure to good effect; Sallie's choices of what to recount to each of her correspondents reveal a lot about her relationships with them.

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References

  1. Fragias, Leonidas (2017). Annual US Top Film Rentals 1912 - 1979 (Kindle ed.). Leonidas Fragias.
  2. Daddy Long Legs (1931), imdb.com; accessed July 23, 2015.
  3. 1 2 Daddy Long Legs (1931 film), tcm.com; accessed July 23, 2015.
  4. Daddy-Long-Legs (1931 film), tcm.com; accessed July 23, 2015.