“No one could teach you to dance in a million years.”

Plot Summary: The developing romance between dance partners Fred and Ginger is hindered by his fiancée and her attachment to a bandleader.

Review:

By the time Fred and Ginger made Swing Time, their sixth romantic musical comedy together in three years, the couple’s natural rapport was honed to perfection, not only in their dancing but also in their unusually affecting romantic interplay.  Despite the frothy plot, which has even more than the usual quota of misunderstandings, breakups and conciliations, this is probably the only film in the series that has any real depth of emotion; notice, for example, the genuine sadness in Ginger’s expression when she discovers that Fred has a fiancée. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the film boasts one of the loveliest of musical scores, courtesy of Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, which includes the lilting, plucky charm of “Pick Yourself Up”, the touching, gently sarcastic romantic vacillations of “A Fine Romance”, and the lyrical splendor of the Oscar-winning “The Way You Look Tonight”, which Fred humorously sings to Ginger while her hair is unattractively lathered with shampoo.      

Astaire not only performed superbly in front of the camera, he was also equally as innovative a choreographer as Busby Berkeley in the ‘30s, albeit in a very different way.  Whereas Berkeley was the creator of visually stunning but wholly exhibitionist extravaganzas, Astaire was more interested in integrating music and dance with narrative, which served both to advance the plot and give expression to the characters’ emotions.  This technique was brought to exquisite perfection in Swing Time, notably in Fred and Ginger’s lovely “Waltz in Swing Time,” a joyous ode to budding romance in which the partners ecstatically leap, whirl and spin in celebration of their love. Equally impressive, however, is the couple’s altogether more downbeat  “Never Gonna Dance”, a somber requiem for their lost romance in which the anguished former lovers desperately try to recapture the magic of their waltzing, only to repeatedly separate and momentarily come back together again, until they finally lose contact with each other completely and break apart for good (well, until the obligatory happy ending, that is).

One can’t discuss Swing Time without mentioning the extraordinary “Bojangles of Harlem” production number, which shows that Fred was not completely averse to staging exhibitionist extravaganzas a la Busby Berkeley.  Conceived as a tribute to the great black tap dancers, particularly Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, this tapping tour de force features Fred scampering with amazing quick-footedness, dancing with a twenty-four girl chorus line as though with a single partner, and out-dancing three giant shadows projected on a screen behind him!  This showstopper is Astaire’s crowning achievement.   

Thanks to superb dancing, great songs, endearing romance, elegant art deco sets, and amusing comic support from bumbling Victor Moore, wisecracking Helen Broderick and haughty Eric Blore, Swing Time is one of the most entertaining musicals ever made.   

Posted on March 8th, 2008 by Mat Viola
Filed under: Reviews