Swing Time (film)

• Release Date: 1936
• Director(s): George Stevens
• Writer(s): Howard Lindsay; Allan Scott
• Principal Actors and Roles: Fred Astaire (John "Lucky" Garnett); Ginger Rogers (Penelope "Penny" Carroll)
• Book / Story Film Based On: Portrait of John Garnett by Erwin S. Gelsey

Swing Time’s amazing dance routines, memorable music, and smart lyrics made this black and white American movie an award-winning box office hit. It was the sixth time Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced as a pair in a movie musical. Many critics consider it Astaire and Rogers’ finest work and the "Never Gonna Dance" routine to be the best of their partnership. Both songs and dances advance the rather uneven plot and, some critics say, even add depth. The sidekicks, played by Victor Moore and Helen Broderick, provide additional comedy. The movie features Astaire’s first use of trick photography in a dance routine, as well as Astaire and Rogers’ first movie kiss, although the kiss is not shown directly.

Other titles were considered for the movie, including I Won’t Dance, Never Gonna Dance, Pick Yourself Up, and possibly as many as fifteen others. Although several of these are also titles of songs within the movie, it was decided these titles would not work for a musical. The actual title, Swing Time, is misleading in that the movie has little swing music; however, it works as an indication of the way Lucky, Astaire’s character, swings his affections from his fiancée to Penny, played by Rogers.

The director of the film, George Stevens, was the son of Landers Stevens, who played the father of the bride who sends Lucky to New York where he meets his true love Penny. George Stevens had a reputation of being a perfectionist and demanding many re-takes of scenes. This style probably meshed well with Astair’s perfectionism about his dances. Some reviewers say this also helped to bring out one of Rogers’ best performances.

Plot

When Lucky Garnett is late for his wedding, the father of the bride calls it off. He decrees that if Lucky, a gambler and professional dancer, can make $25,000 in New York City, then Lucky can come back and marry his daughter. Lucky heads for New York with his magician friend Pop, hoping to earn the money.

Lucky meets Penny, a dance instructor, when he needs change for his lucky quarter. Due to Pop’s fumbling attempts to retrieve the lucky quarter and replace it with a regular one, Penny accuses Lucky of theft. She won’t listen to his apologies, so he pretends to need a dance lesson and acts so clumsy and awkward that she declares no one could ever teach him to dance.

Penny’s boss overhears and fires her for being so rude to a customer. Lucky says he will prove how much she has taught him and ends up astonishing the boss when he and Penny perform an intricate dance routine. The boss arranges for them to audition for jobs at the Silver Sandals nightclub. After a series of mishaps, they show up for the audition but the orchestra leader, Ricky, refuses to play for them because he does not want her to dance with anyone else. Lucky gambles for Ricky’s contract and with Pop’s sneaky help, wins it. Ricky and his orchestra play for their audition. Lucky and Penny amaze everyone, win jobs, and fall in love. But Lucky is still engaged to another woman, Margaret, who shows up for Lucky’s performance.

When Penny hears that Lucky is already engaged, she gets engaged to Ricky. Lucky knows he cannot go through with marrying Margaret. But before he can tell her, she announces that she is in love with someone else and breaks the engagement. With minutes to spare before her wedding, Penny learns that Lucky is no longer engaged. Still angry at Lucky, she plans to go through with her wedding anyway. But after Lucky and Pop trick Ricky out of his pants, she breaks her engagement and agrees to marry Lucky.

Significance

Most critics consider Swing Time to be one of the best, if not the best, of the Astaire and Rogers movies and to be one of the great musicals of its time. It was a box office winner as well as receiving mostly positive reviews. The music was considered to be beautiful and moving, and the dance sequences nothing short of magical.

A common criticism was that the beginning dragged, with no full musical numbers for almost the first half hour of the film. Initially the film opened with a dance number, "It’s In the Cards," but most of it was cut when it was judged to be too weak. Although the film was shown several times with that number intact, the footage has since been lost.

The song "The Way You Look Tonight" won an Oscar in 1937 for best song. With music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, it defeated Cole Porter’s "I’ve Got You Under My Skin", among other strong contenders. Other Swing Time songs that became classics include "Pick Yourself Up," "A Fine Romance," and "Never Gonna Dance."

Swing Time also garnered an Oscar nomination for best dance direction for Hermes Pan who worked with Fred Astaire on the "Bojangles of Harlem" number. In this number, a tribute to the black dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Astaire wore blackface and danced with three large shadows of himself. Over the course of three days, the dance was shot several times, with and without shadows, and then the footage was combined. This was the first time that Astaire used trick photography in a dance routine.

The "Never Gonna Dance" number is considered by some to be the best of all the dances that Astaire and Rogers ever performed together. Most of the pair’s dances were filmed in a continuous shot and this one was especially difficult, requiring forty-seven takes. Roger’s feet bled during the many hours of filming.

In 2003, a Broadway play based on Swing Time was produced. Titled Never Gonna Dance, it had eighty-four performances and included most of the original songs, as well as additional ones from Jerome Kern.

In 2007, when the American Film Institute put together its listing of the one hundred greatest movies of all time, it named Swing Time as number ninety. Swing Time was also selected for the National Film Registry in 2004. The National Film Registry chooses films that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" to be preserved in the Library of Congress.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1936) Best Original Song

Nominated

• Academy Award (1936) Best Dance Direction: Hermes Pan

Bibliography

Astaire, Fred. Steps in Time. New York: Harper, 1959. Print.

Barrios, Richard. Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.

Bloom, Ken, and Jane Powell. Hollywood Musicals: The 101 Greatest Song-and-dance Movies of All Time. New York: Black Dog, 2010. Print.

Hischak, Thomas S. The Oxford Companion to the American Musical: Theatre, Film, and Television. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print

Kniffel, Leonard. Musicals on the Silver Screen. Chicago: Huron Street, 2013. Print.

Robinson, Mark A. The World of Musicals: An Encyclopedia of Stage, Screen, and Song. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2014. Print.