1936 Directed by George Stevens
Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding again and has to make $25,000 so her father allows him to marry Margaret. He and business partner Pop go to New York where they run into dancing instructor Penny. She and Lucky form a successful dance partnership, but romance is blighted by his old attachment to Margaret and hers for Ricky Romero.
Fred Astaire randomly appearing in blackface is like a close friend slapping you in the face with his cock.
the sweetest kiss scene immediately followed by an extended blackface routine... slap in the face
One of my favorite sad loser things to do—although to me it doesn’t feel sad at all—is to put on a Fred Astaire movie right as I go to sleep, and drift in and out to those familiar sounds, until I eventually fall asleep. You can be sure that somewhere along the line I will be woken up again, usually by the sound of Astaire singing, and it's the most beautiful feeling. It's hard to explain, but it's like he came to me in a dream or just the opposite—it feels like a heightened reality. It’s a bit like when I dream of my childhood in the mountains or that my dad is still alive—it puts me in a state…
that was the cutest kiss scene i have ever—WAIT WHAT THE FUCK FRED, THAT HAD BETTER BE A CHARCOAL FACE MASK YOU’RE PUTTING ON NONONONONO FUCK STOP STOP
fred astaire performing an entire number in blackface and then singing a song about how he’s never gonna dance again...maybe that’s for the best bby boo 😘
Yeah, all these Fred and Ginger movies are pretty much the same, except this one has the added distinction of being “The Fred and Ginger Movie (With Blackface!)”.
Criterion Collection Spine #979
Well I guess ignorance is bliss, when it comes to the silly and sleazy way Swing Time manages to pulls its great dance scenes together.
"What made you think of it? ... Think of what? ... The music ... Oh, I don't know; my mind was wandering, I guess."
Well to put it simply, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are simply magic on the dance floor as they effortlessly perform the eloquent ballroom and tap routines in Swing Time. But the cheeky dated romance story that makes up the bulk of the film is flawed to say the least, along with some other unfortunate elements.
So I knew about the 'Bojangles of Harlem' scene coming in,…
I loved this movie, but not surprisingly Werner Herzog does a better job than I could explaining why this is one of his favorite films:
“There's a fantastic scene of Fred Astaire dancing with his own shadow. He's exposed to a wall, and he actually casts three shadows, and he dances in sync. And then he stops and the three shadows stop, of course in sync -- and all of a sudden they become independent and they start moving on and he's still watching. It's just phenomenal.”
“The stories of these films are always very insipid, and Fred Astaire is a man who has a real foolish face, and yet I love him. He has this magic that only can be found in cinema.”
There is much to admire in Swing Time. It is perhaps the best of the nine RKO Astaire-Rogers musicals. It is certainly a better picture than Top Hat. It is funnier, pacier and the song and dance routines are more dazzling and elegant. And the plot is less annoying – and more importantly so is Fred Astaire.
You see I have always found the characters Astaire plays a little too smarmy. There is always an air of deception and mistrust with him. There is seldom any honesty. His characters seem to be looking for an angle. He would steal your last quarter if it meant he would get ahead. And in Swing Time, he actually does; or at least he…
“Swing Time” is “Top Hat’s” less footloose and fancy-free sister film. It executes similar steps with better precision, but less raw joy.
Fred Astaire took his discipline in doling out dance sequences in plot-advancing ways to a greater extreme in “Swing Time” then he ever had in “Top Hat.” It’s a strategy helped in that, where “Top Hat” had some intangible whimsy of story ideas, “Swing Time” possesses the actual fragments of a narrative.
But - was the sacrifice of raw ecstasy in the form of a tap routine worth it for a plot that’s still tissue-paper thin? I call it usury.
The nearly Scooge-like hoarding of the Hermes Pan choreography in “Swing Time” becomes almost maddening. It can feel…
A fine romance, with a little… blackface?
A fine romance, until the moment that stage —
— is consumed by an offensive racial caricature dance!
This film never stood a chance, but it’s still a fine romance!
