Swing Time

film by Stevens [1936]

Written by Lee Pfeiffer

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Article History

Swing Time, American musical comedy film, released in 1936, that was the fifth teaming of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is considered by many to be their best collaborative effort.

Lucky Garnett (played by Astaire) is a gambler and dancer who, after arriving late to his own wedding, finds himself barred from marrying his sweetheart until he can prove his viability as a provider by providing her father with $25,000. Garnett goes to New York, where he hopes to win the money. However, after he meets and falls in love with dance instructor Penny (played by Rogers), he visualizes walking down the aisle with another bride-to-be.

A slight comedy of manners and mixed-up love lives, Swing Time is distinguished in part by its playful wit. It is the elaborately choreographed dance numbers, however, that have established the film’s reputation as a classic musical. Astaire did not believe in improvisation and painstakingly planned out key sequences in the minutest detail. Thus, his “spontaneous” dance numbers with Rogers were carefully plotted, as witnessed in the famous “Never Gonna Dance” number. Earning equal praise was Astaire’s work in the “Bojangles of Harlem” sequence, an homage to dancer Bill Robinson that was nominated for an Academy Award. The film also introduced Jerome Kern’s classic song “The Way You Look Tonight,” which won an Oscar.