Swing Time ***** (1936, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Victor Moore, Betty Furness, Georges Metaxa) – Classic Movie Review 936

‘America’s dazzling dancing stars explode in a glorious songburst of gayety and gladness!’ Director George Stevens’s heavenly all-time great 1936 musical Swing Time stars the divine pair of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, already in their sixth movie together (out of an eventual ten).

It lifts the spirits to the rooftops with the stars at their blissful heights as new dancing partners who can’t swing because performer and gambler Lucky Garnett (Astaire) is already promised to his fiancée Margaret Watson (Betty Furness).

Lucky is tricked into missing his wedding to Margaret by the other members of Pop Cardetti (Victor Moore)’s magic and dance act. So Lucky travels with Pop to New York City to raise the $25,000 he needs to get married, only to become entangled with beautiful dancing instructor and aspiring dancer Penny Carroll (Rogers).

Penny and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is hindered by his attachment to Margaret and hers to Ricky Romero (Georges Metaxa), the band leader who won’t play for them to dance together.

Production designers Van Nest Polglase and Carroll Clark provide the eye-catching art deco nightclub sets and there’s a handsome, painstaking production. There is an exceptional support cast, with expertly judged and still funny turns from sassy Helen Broderick and silly-ass Eric Blore, who provide comedy relief of the most amusing kind. Alas, there are no appearances by Edward Everett Horton or Erik Rhodes though.

But it is the beautifully performed chain of Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields pearl numbers that count most – ‘A Fine Romance’, ‘Pick Yourself Up’, and particularly the gorgeous ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, which deservedly won an Oscar for Best Song. For this, Rogers is seen washing her hair: she finally had to cover her face in whipped cream to get the desired look.

Choreographed by Hermes Pan, the other dance highlights are definitely Astaire’s shadow dance idea ‘Bojangles of Harlem’ number and the finale duet ‘Never Gonna Dance’, whose climax took 47 takes to film in a single day and required endless demanding spins of Rogers, whose feet bled. No wonder it was her favourite of her films with Astaire.

Howard Lindsay and Allan Scott’s screenplay is based on the story Portrait of John Barnett by Erwin S Gelsey.

The film’s opening number ‘It’s Not in the Cards’ was cut, but the music is used in the background during the first few scenes.

Easter Parade is Astaire’s most successful film financially. The other great Astaire and Rogers films are Top Hat, The Gay Divorcee and Shall We Dance.

Though Top Hat remains the star pair’s best-known and most successful movie financially, Swing Time arguably has a finer set of dances, contains three of Jerome Kern’s most memorable songs and showcases Rogers’s best acting and dancing performance.

Also in the cast are Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Betty Furness, Georges Metaxa, Landers Stevens, John Harrington, Pierre Watkin, Abe Reynolds, Gerald Hamer, Edgar Dearing, Harry Bernard, Harry Bowen, Bill Brande, Ralph Brooks, Ralph Byrd, Alan Curtis, Fern Emmett, Bess Flowers, Olin Francis, Jack Good, Charlie Hall, Frank Hammond, Howard C Hickman, Frank Jenks, Donald Kerr, Sam Lufkin, David Mcdonald, Frank Mills, Ferdinand Munier, Bob O’Connor, Dennis O’Keefe, Marie Osborne, Ted O’Shea, Jean Perry, Joey Ray, Jack Rice, Floyd Shackleford, John Shelton, Dale Van Sickel, Sailor Vincent and Blanca Vischer.

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