"Swing Time" - Film Review

I’m not sure how to classify Swing Time. It’s a comedy, a romance, and, most importantly, a musical. It’s one of those Old Hollywood crowd pleasers that throws in many different elements to entertain everyone.

Swing Time is best remembered as one of the films that paired together Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This was the sixth film they starred in opposite eachother. There’s a sense of ease between them; they work well with one another and they know how to bring the best out of the other. The chemistry between the two is electrifying, and it carries the film during its more dated moments. 

The dance sequences are the films best, most memorable scenes. Astaire and Rogers are such magnificent dancers that they make the tricky routines feel effortless.  They're complicated acts, but Astaire and Rogers are so graceful, so elegant that it feels spontaneous even though we know it isn't.

There’s also some musical numbers sung by them. The musical numbers aren’t noteworthy but they have their own charm about them, particularly in the hands of these performers. Though the number "Never Gonna Dance" is fairly devastating due to how convincingly the two sell it.  

Much of the film feels hokey and predictable, which gives it a clunky feel at times. But it’s not meant to be logical or tell a fantastic story. It’s clichéd and thinly put together, but sequences taken on their own are such pleasing and fun bits that they make it worth the price of admission. 

The film is still rather funny. Victor Moore especially as the bumbling Pop is fairly amusing. The way Moore mumbles his words and makes him awkward is a great bit of character work. 

The romance is one of such obvious by the numbers that the film is really putting the plausibility on the shoulder of Astaire and Rogers, but they’re absolutely game for it. They meet up by accident, resent one another, grow to have feelings, and then dance around (quite literally) acting upon them. The film throws an interesting wrench into it though. Astaire is engaged to another woman from back home, but he’s split as to whether he wants to still be with her. 

The most dated, and most offensive, part of the film is a blackface routine. It’s a low point for the film and it almost detracts from the goodwill the film has built up elsewhere. The film remains good in spite of this, but it’s a little upsetting to watch.  Though that number "Bojangles of Harlem" has its own impressive dancing.

This is a film largely meant as a showcase for Astaire and Rogers’ talents. They’re great stage performers. The film has a stagey quality. The sets are grand and clearly on a sound stage. They recall the decadence of Old Hollywood. The film is theatrical in the sense that you could imagine this being some sort of play. Everything flows with the logic and timing of a theater performance, and that is part of the film’s effectiveness and charm.

Everything is expressed through song and dance. Astaire and Rogers fall for eachother through the music, through the dancing, and through the beauty of these acts. The dances are virtuoso, and Astaire and Rogers danced like few people have or ever will. There was a spark between them that went beyond dancing well-together. They made the dancing somehow more than just dancing. Something magical.

Grade: A