Swing Time (1936)
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Swing Time Movie Review
Swing Time is a 1936 musical romantic comedy film directed by George Stevens and starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It’s a very charming movie.
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“Listen. No one could teach you to dance in a million years.
Take my advice and save your money!“
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Risk-taking Lucky Garnett pursues dancing and gambling with equal verve. Engaged to the pretty Margaret, Lucky gets pre-wedding nerves, which leads to the ceremony being called off. Margaret’s father decides that Lucky can have a second chance at marrying her if he can make $25,000, so he heads to New York City to seek his fortune. When Lucky meets the beautiful dance teacher Penny Carroll, however, his priorities soon change.
Needless to say, as is the case with all Astaire-Rogers vehicles, this one is also very thinly plotted and the emphasis is more on the musical numbers. The plot is serviceable, though nothing special. It’s predictable and expected. But it mostly works in the context of a light musical flick.
It’s a movie that doesn’t have any supporting players, unlike ‘The Gay Divorcee’ and ‘Top Hat’. That was done for better and for worse. On the one hand, it felt empty, but on the other hand, the main duo was better established.
I loved Rogers and Astaire here. She’s memorable and he’s very likable. The scenes with them together are the reason to see this film. Not only are they very charismatic, but the scenes are reliably romantic, charming and perfectly breezy and fun. That snow sequence steals the show as it’s irresistibly wonderful.
Swing Time has a solid number of songs and unfortunately only two are great with the others ranging from serviceable to mostly forgettable. But A Fine Romance is absolutely wonderful, very romantic and it has a very sweet, fun tune. The same goes for The Way You Look Tonight and even more.
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This song is timeless and iconic. It’s so damn elegant, romantic and perfectly sung that it rightfully snatched its Oscar for best song. The dancing is proclaimed to be the best when it comes to this duo and I agree as it’s fabulous and very elaborate. The film is technically terrific with some strong imagery, but I wish the dialogue and especially humor were better. But still it’s a good film that is better upon second viewing.
Swing Time is very thinly and predictably plotted while the comedy elements could have been emphasized more as well, but Astaire and Rogers are amazing and all of their scenes steal the show, especially their terrific dancing. The two best numbers – The Way You Look Tonight and A Fine Romance – are both wonderful.
