Swing Time (1936)

This film is often named as the best or most popular musical/romance of dancing duo Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire (they only made ten films together, nine for RKO Radio Pictures), rivaled only by Top Hat (1935). In their dance series, this feel-good film of the Depression-era is usually regarded as the one with Ginger Rogers' best, most fluid performance. The film was also one of director George Stevens' earliest films, his eighth feature film (immediately after directing Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams (1935) and Barbara Stanwyck in Annie Oakley (1935)). The famous duo's first film Flying Down to Rio (1933) was directed by Thornton Freeland, and their next four by Mark Sandrich - The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935) and Follow the Fleet (1936). The film is the sixth in the series of Astaire-Rogers films, and is more entertaining for its dance numbers than its storyline (a script written by Howard Lindsay and revised by Allen Scott, and based upon an original story by Erwin Gelsey). Their dances are usually filmed with only one or two camera positions or setups in real-time, without alot of editing and cross-cutting. One of the film's working titles was Never Gonna Dance, (the antithesis of Rogers/Astaire films) but was changed to Swing Time to reflect Astaire's interest in making the film "swinging" and contemporary. Curiously, the film is almost a half-hour finished before the appearance of the first song and/or dance number. As in all Rogers/Astaire films, the non-sensical romantic plot is rather contrived and unbalanced, and is built mostly around a series of wonderfully-choreographed dance numbers, duets, Art Deco sets and songs. As a dancer turned gambler, Astaire is challenged to raise $25,000 to prove to his father-in-law that he can support and marry his fiancee Betty Furness. Screened during the height of the Depression Era, the film also served an inspirational purpose for the spirits of the country, especially with the song-dance "Pick Yourself Up." The love scenes between the stars, composed mostly of break-ups and reconciliations, are played out in movement to music. They dance and act flawlessly together in three duets, expressing various emotional phases of their relationship - attraction and courtship, celebratory happiness of their love, and painful separation: the charming and exuberant "Pick Yourself Up," the instrumental "Waltz in Swing Time," and their final eloquent, anguished dance duet, "Never Gonna Dance" - one of the peak examples of their entire dance partnership. There are six Jerome Kern tunes in the film, including the exquisite "The Way You Look Tonight" (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and sung by Astaire at the piano). Of the film's two nominations, the ballad won the film's sole Oscar - for Best Song. [Kern's Best Song victory defeated Cole Porter's classic "I've Got You Under My Skin" from Born to Dance.] Astaire and Rogers also sing another Kern/Fields hit song together: A Fine Romance. This marvelous picture also features a vigorous solo by Astaire in 'blackface' (his first and only), "Bojangles of Harlem" (a tribute to great black tap dancer Bill Robinson who was best known for his appearances in Shirley Temple movies). [Astaire appeared with Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn (1942), in which Crosby also does an incredibly-dated 'blackface' number.] The film's only other nomination was for Best Dance Direction (Hermes Pan) specifically for this number. It is listed as number 90 on the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list. In 2004, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Trivia

Swing Time was originally going to bear a title of Never Gonna Dance or I Won't Dance, but it was decided such a name would not be very enticing for a movie musical. Director George Stevens is credited with coming up with the final title. A common criticism leveled at Swing Time is that it drags in the beginning. The first musical sequence occurs roughly 24 minutes into the picture. Actually, though, the film was to have started with a musical number. There was originally a routine by Astaire and his buddies in the magic-and-dance troupe, to a song called "It's Not in the Cards." The number was deemed weak and cut from the film. The sequence did exist in the print sent to Radio City Music Hall for its premiere, and several early New York reviews mention it. All subsequent prints deleted the scene however, and the footage is apparently lost. As the film opens now, we only see Astaire coming offstage after the number, and the viewer feels cheated as a result. Swing Time director George Stevens cast his father, Landers Stevens, as the irate potential father-inlaw who gets the movie's plot rolling. The elder Stevens had been an actor in films since 1920. Seldom playing more than bit parts, he nevertheless appeared in 90 movies before his death in 1940. Swing Time features the first real kiss of the Astaire-Rogers series, though the audience does not see it directly. Actually, two kisses are implied. One occurs behind a door that swings open and blocks the camera's view, and the other occurs with Fred's back to the camera. It would be two more films before we see an unobstructed on-screen kiss between the pair. George Stevens' direction and the photography by David Abel emphasized the shimmering contrasts often seen in the Astaire-Rogers films. The glittering whites and the deep blacks are constantly showing up in the sets, costumes and design. It is no mistake that snow is repeated several times as a romantic motif, and mirrored on the major club set as twinkling stars. Helen Broderick (Mabel in Swing Time) had appeared in one other Astaire-Rogers film, Top Hat in 1935, but five years earlier she had appeared in the original Broadway production of The Band Wagon which featured Fred and Adele Astaire in their final joint appearance. She is the mother of actor Broderick Crawford, who would later win the Best Actor Oscar for All the King's Men (1949). George Stevens also directed the 1935 Wheeler & Woolsey comedy The Nitwits, featuring the song "Music in My Heart," co-written by Swing Time lyricist Dorothy Fields. A year prior to Swing Time, Ginger Rogers sang several Dorothy Fields-penned lyrics, in the movie In Person. Rogers danced to "Out of Sight, Out of Mind," sang "Don't Mention Love to Me," and sang and danced to "Got a New Lease on Life." These songs were co-written by Fields and Oscar Levant. Eric Blore, the rotund and fussy dance school instructor in Swing Time, shows up in four Astaire-Rogers movies, more than any other supporting player. His other appearances are in The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat, and Shall We Dance (1937). In 1935 Fred Astaire was signed to the Brunswick label to record new studio versions of his movie songs. Without Ginger Rogers, he released several Swing Time songs on 78rpm records. In 1936 these titles were recorded with backing by Johnny Green and His Orchestra: "The Way You Look Tonight", "Never Gonna Dance", "Pick Yourself Up", "A Fine Romance", and "Bojangles of Harlem." On the latter, we hear Fred's dancing as well. According to author Arlene Croce in The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book, The Silver Sandal nightclub in Swing Time "was named after The Silver Slipper on West 48th Street, one of New York's best-known night clubs. Like most of the clubs it was gone by 1932; another club with the same name was opened in the Forties. The Club Raymond was a composite of Hollywood's Clover Club, where movie people did a lot of heavy gambling, and the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, which opened the same year that Silver Slipper closed. In the film, John Harkrider's set for "Bojangles" looks like part of the Silver Sandal." by John Miller

Credits

Swing Time - 1936 - RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Producer: Director: Writer: Cast: Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers Victor Moore Helen Broderick Eric Blore Betty Furness Georges Metaxa Cinematography: Editing: Musical Director: Composers: Dance Director: Art Director: Visual Effects: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... John "Lucky" Garnett Penelope "Penny" Carrol Everett "Pop" Cardetti Mabel Anderson Gordon Margaret Watson Ricardo "Ricky" Romero Pandro S. Berman George Stevens Howard Lindsay, Allan Scott (Story by Erwin Gelsey)

David Abel Henry Berman Nathaniel Shilkret Robert Russell Bennett, Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields Hermes Pan Van Nest Polglase Vernon Walker