Daddy Long Legs Astaire, Fred performer Caron, Leslie performer Film 1955-05-05 Twentieth Century-Fox Shot in CinemaScope, the musical gave dancers much lateral space to fill, with Astaire paired with the ballet-trained Leslie Caron (she had extensive ballet training at the Paris Conservatory and had been a member of the Ballets des Champs-Elysees). The film opens with "The History of the Beat" in which Astaire, in his palatial New York house, holds forth in an upstairs office simultaneously banging on a set of drums (Astaire owned a set of drums and reportedly would spend hours slamming away at the traps to the accompaniment of jazz records) and making firm financial decisions. Though this scene was partially cut, the conductor's score for the film suggests the opening Astaire solo was to bouncily detail the progress of "the beat" from ragtime through jitterbug and swing to bop and "cool". Wherein "the beat is broken but unbowed." While the verse of the song is included in the film, its sixty-or seventy-measure chorus was not. "Something's Gotta Give," propelled by Mercer's musical syncopation, is visualized in lush partnering figures that include lovely partnered hops on the syncopated figure in the music. The number leads from the palatial house to the nightclub where the number continues in double exposure as the dancers are seen frolicking over images suggesting various nightclubs; the locales vary as do the musical arrangements which alternate from Latin to American jazz. The ponderous and pretentious dream ballet (appropriately named "Nightmare Ballet") was created by the French choreographer Roland Petit. Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html Fred Astaire (biography) loc.music.tdabio.16 tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.727