Daddy Long Legs (1931 film)

Last updated

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]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Dodd</span> American actress (1911–1973)

Claire Dodd was an American film actress.

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (1955 film) 1955 film by Jean Negulesco

Daddy Long Legs (1955) is a musical comedy film set in France, New York City, and the fictional college town of Walston, Massachusetts. The film was directed by Jean Negulesco, and stars Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Terry Moore, Fred Clark, and Thelma Ritter, with music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The screenplay was written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, loosely based on the 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.

<i>A Star Is Born</i> (1937 film) 1937 film by William A. Wellman

A Star Is Born is a 1937 American Technicolor drama film produced by David O. Selznick, directed by William A. Wellman from a script by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell, and starring Janet Gaynor as an aspiring Hollywood actress, and Fredric March as a fading movie star who helps launch her career. The supporting cast features Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine, Lionel Stander, and Owen Moore. At the 10th Academy Awards, it became the first color film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

<i>Daddy-Long-Legs</i> (novel) American epistolary novel

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, as she leaves an orphanage and is sent to college by a benefactor whom she has never seen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Webster</span> American novelist

Jean Webster was the pen name of Alice Jane Chandler Webster, an American author whose books include Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cora Witherspoon</span> American actress

Cora Witherspoon was an American stage and film character actress whose career spanned nearly half a century. She began in theatre where she remained rooted even after entering motion pictures in the early 1930s. As Witherspoon’s career progressed, she carved a niche playing haughty society women or harridan housewives such as Princess Lina in Ferenc Molnár's 1928 play Olympia, or Agatha Sousè, W.C. Fields’ domineering spouse in the 1940 film The Bank Dick. John Springer and Jack Hamilton, authors of They Had Faces Then: Super Stars, Stars, and Starlets of the 1930s (1974), wrote that "Witherspoon was blessed with a face that might have been drawn by one of those cartoonists who specialize in dealing with the war between men and women."

<i>Daddy-Long-Legs</i> (1919 film) 1919 film

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1919 American silent comedy-drama film directed by Marshall Neilan, and based on Jean Webster's 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. The film stars Mary Pickford.

<i>Merely Mary Ann</i> 1931 film

Merely Mary Ann a 1931 American pre-Code romantic comedy drama film starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Gaynor and Farrell made almost a dozen films together, including Frank Borzage's classics 7th Heaven (1927), Street Angel (1928), and Lucky Star (1929); Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress for the first two and F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The film, involving an orphan (Gaynor) and a flat-broke composer (Farrell), was written by Jules Furthman based upon Israel Zangwill's play of the same name and directed by Henry King.

<i>Change of Heart</i> (1934 film) 1934 film by John G. Blystone

Change of Heart is a 1934 American pre-Code drama film starring Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, James Dunn, and Ginger Rogers. The movie, about a quartet of college chums who all move to 1934 New York City, was written by James Gleason and Sonya Levien from Kathleen Norris's novel, Manhattan Love Song and directed by John G. Blystone.

<i>Paddy the Next Best Thing</i> (1933 film) 1933 film by Harry Lachman

Paddy the Next Best Thing is a 1933 American pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by Harry Lachman and starring Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter and Walter Connolly. The screenplay was written by Edwin J. Burke, based on the 1912 novel Paddy the Next Best Thing by Gertrude Page and its later stage adaptation, which had previously been made into a 1923 British silent film of the same title. The film reteamed Gaynor and Baxter who had starred together in the 1931 hit Daddy Long Legs.

<i>One More Spring</i> 1935 American comedy film

One More Spring is a 1935 American comedy drama film about three people, played by Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter, and Walter Woolf King, living together in a tool room at Central Park as an alternative to being homeless. The film was written by Edwin J. Burke from the Robert Nathan novel of the same name and directed by Henry King.

<i>Dear Enemy</i> (novel)

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.

<i>My Daddy Long Legs</i> 1990 Japanese animated television series

My Daddy Long Legs is a Japanese animated television series based on the novel Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.

Daddy longlegs or daddy long legs may refer to:

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (1938 film) 1938 film

Daddy Long Legs or Vadertje Langbeen is a 1938 Dutch romantic comedy film directed by Frederic Zelnik, based on Jean Webster's 1912 novel of the same name - one of several adaptations of that book.

<i>Daddys Gone A-Hunting</i> (1925 film) 1925 film

Daddy's Gone A-Hunting is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Frank Borzage based upon a play by Zoë Akins, with adaptation by Kenneth B. Clarke. The film brought together Vitagraph leading lady Alice Joyce and English actor Percy Marmont after his success with If Winter Comes. This is the only film either of the main stars made for MGM. The film was remade in 1931 as Women Love Once. A print survives in the Národní filmový archiv.

<i>Amateur Daddy</i> 1932 film

Amateur Daddy is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by John G. Blystone and written by Frank Dolan and Doris Malloy. The film stars Warner Baxter, Marian Nixon, Rita La Roy, and David Landau. The film was released on April 10, 1932, by Fox Film Corporation.

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (musical) 2007 musical by Paul Gordon and John Caird

Daddy Long Legs is a stage musical with a book by John Caird, and music and lyrics by Paul Gordon. It is based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Jean Webster. Set in turn-of-the-century New England, the musical tells the story of orphan Jerusha Abbott of the John Grier Home and her mysterious benefactor who agrees to send her to college, who she dubs "Daddy Long Legs" after seeing his elongated shadow. Under the conditions of her benefactor, Jerusha sends him a letter once a month, describing her new-found experiences with life outside the orphanage.

<i>Love from Judy</i> British musicals

Love from Judy is a musical with music by Hugh Martin, lyrics by Martin and Jack Gray, and a book by Eric Maschwitz and Jean Webster. It is based on Webster's novel and play Daddy-Long-Legs. The original production opened in Coventry in 1951 and then moved to the Saville Theatre on the West End and opened on September 25, 1952. The production was also televised in 1953.

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1914 play by the American writer Jean Webster. Webster adapted it from her own 1912 epistolary novel Daddy-Long-Legs.

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.