Cinema: The New Pictures, may 9, 1955

Daddy Long Legs (20th Century-Fox) is being breathlessly touted by the publicists as the picture in which Leslie Caron "for the first time bares her forehead." As a matter of fact, when the bangs are brushed back, the lady's forehead looks just about like everybody else's. Still and all, it is probably the most unusual thing about this picture.

The third movie made from Jean Webster's bestselling novel (1912) and hit play (1914), Daddy Long Legs is the first to set the story to music (by Johnny Mercer and Alex North). The saccharine story: a wealthy, middle-aged American (Fred Astaire) takes a fancy to a pretty young French orphan (Leslie Caron) and decides to pay her way through college in the U.S. Lest philanthropy be thought philandering, he keeps his identity a secret. Leslie knows him only from his shadow, seen once in an odd light, as "Daddy Long Legs." However, there is nothing more certain in Hollywood than the fact that to the man who pays the bill belongs the coo.

Fred and Leslie dance pretty well separately, but when they get together the ballerina looks about as comfortable in a two-step as Fred would in a tutu. The show has its moments, though. "Am I leading?" asks a muscular young woman Fred is dancing with. "No," he replies, breathing hard. "I think it's a tie." For the art lovers, there is a scene in which the camera respectfully inspects a series of paintings, genuine originals, by Jean Baptiste Corot, Raoul Dufy, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Claudette Colbert.

Heartbreak Ridge (Tudor Pictures) is a rare piece of work by any standards. Filmed in color (with English narration) under the auspices of France's Ministry of Defense, Heartbreak tells the story of the famed French battalion in Korea. The soldiers of the battalion are the cast, the actual 1952 battleground is the setting. The director and a cameraman were wounded by Communist fire while filming it. Not since John Huston's San Pietro (1945) has a film shown in the U.S. come so close to capturing the painful reality of foxhole war.

But for all its this-is-how-it-really-was quality, Heartbreak is far more than a newsreel. It threads its story on the trial-by-fire of young Lieut. Gérard Garcet, a replacement starch-fresh from St. Cyr. At first Career Officer Garcet learns a basic lesson—war is mostly waiting.

At last, with spring, comes the call to action. Garcet takes the long jeep ride into combat, full of zeal and professional hopes ("Promotions do not come to young lieutenants promenading on the Champs Elysées"). He soon learns that he is the New Boy at the Old School; his fellow officers reminisce about when the war was really tough; his hard-bitten platoon promptly dubs him "Battling Baby-Face."

It takes Freshman Garcet several lonely months before he breaks through to acceptance, and he does it the hard way. In a successful dawn attack on a Chinese hill position, much of his platoon is wiped out, and he is badly wounded. Back in the aid station, he hears from a dying platoon member the first words of greeting, eloquent in their sense of sudden loss: "I wish I had gotten to know you better."