Smoreni Zmaj Have you ever seen a bad romantic musical comedy from the first half of the twentieth century ?! I haven't. Although many resemble one another, and after a while they melt together in my memory, they all carry joy of life that in the decades that follow slowly disappears from movies, and today it's almost nowhere to find. Among them stand out mutual films of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Ginger's beauty is breathtaking and their mutual chemistry is magical. Story is light and fun, music and dance as always great, but although I really liked it, it did not particularly stand out from the masses of similar ones, and it's far below, for example, Top Hat. I have yet to mention, in my opinion, the best scene in the movie, where Astaire is followed by three huge dancing shadows. Joyful recommendation.7/10

ElMaruecan82 That's funny, I was very much aware of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' legendary status in Hollywood's canon ever since I was a kid, probably at a time when I hadn't reached 5% of my current cinematic knowledge. But it took till my mid-thirties to watch one of these many cinematic partnerships. I guess it's never too late to discover a gem of Hollywood Golden Age. But to be quite honest, I didn't pick "Swing Time" because it's the most celebrated Astaire-Rogers film (or is it "Top Hat"?), I picked it because of its inclusion in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movies (the latest edition). I had never heard about it so when I saw the title on the list, I was like "OK, but why not "Top Hat"?". Not that I've seen it either, but the film was listed in AFI's Musicals List and "Cheek to Cheek" among the Top 100 most iconic songs, not to mention that the dance sequence was a staple of Hollywood, used in many contemporary movies to define the Golden Age.But no, they picked "Swing Time" and I guess they had their reasons, and from what I read in the reviews, including Roger Ebert's (I always do that when it comes to movies I know a little about, so you can imagine for those I have zero awareness), George Stevens' 1936 romantic comedy is the best Astaire-Rogers movie, which means that it contains their best dance routines. I second that. The dance sequences not only please and impress the eyes but I loved the way they were fitting in the story. In lesser musicals, they generally work as fillers, interludes, but here, they deliver more than scenes.And now it's time I deliver a little about the film. There's John aka "Lucky" a gambler who misses his wedding ceremony when he's conned by his friends into betting that he wouldn't miss it. The film starts with the usual set-up of a marriage we suspect will never happen. Lucky is summoned by his father-in-law-to be but slip through the net by telling he'll win enough money from to prove his good intentions. The way things revolve around winning money seems very contrived and repetitive but necessary to kick Lucky and his friend Pop (scene stealing Victor Moore) out of the town.Lucky comes to New York, he's broke (he lost his money on the marriage bet) and tries to con Penny, a modest dance teacher (Ginger Rogers) he crosses on street, one thing leading to another, he tells her he needs dance lessons, and I suspect it was more difficult for Astaire to feign lousy steps than any routine he had to play. But Rogers has quite a modern approach to her role, she's both invested and detached, a bit like Meg Ryan at her prime without distracting good looks, she's a real match for Astaire as you never doubt they're not having fun together. The first dance starts when Lucky wants to prove Penny's boss how good a teacher she is, and then the magic starts.There's an energy, a lightness, a glee of being and a cheerful complicity that never leaves any dance floor where these four feet operate together, and it's always catching with you. Although the film follows the formula of the screwball comedy to the letter, Astaire and Rogers seem to take it differently from the usual players (Grant, Gable, Russell...) where it's all about rapid-fire dialogues and outsmarting contests, the film is funny and you also enjoy the company of both Moore and Helen Broderick as Penny's friend, but you can tell the two actors are only talking circles when the real deal is the dance.The film is rich in romantic ballads "The Way You Look Tonight" which became Astaire's signature song and the "Never Gonna Dance" near the end that inspired the climactic dance sequence. So dancing is the real star, along with Astaire and Rogers, forming a sort of holy trinity whose aura inhabit the film without ever overriding it. All these dances never last more than five minutes, even Astaire's 'blackface' tap dance in the middle is long enough to let you enjoy the humorous details with the three silhouettes dancing behind Astaire, but short enough to never let the excitement fade. So whether for jazz, tap dance or waltz, every emotion is beautifully conveyed by these magical steps. I'm no analyst or expert to judge them on a technical level but I found them so lively, so dynamic, so emotionally rich that it was just as if they were telling a story within the story and more than that, they were more than interludes. Actually, they were so good that they inevitably highlighted the little flaws, essentially, the script which was too predictable or formulaic. Like a critic of the time said "if only the story was as good as the dancing".Indeed, the dancing was so magical and integral to the film's appeal that it's quite ironic one of its most defining song is "Never Gonna Dance". I'm glad they didn't pick this as the title, although "Swing Time" doesn't do justice to the music either, the film does far more than swinging. Maybe they should have taken the French title, pretty poetic and beautiful, it simply says "Over the Wings of Dancing" and that's true with Astaire and Rogers, you could think they would literally fly over the dancefloor.

Charles Herold (cherold) Even by the standards of Astaire musicals, this story is pretty dumb, with Astaire an engaged gambler who meets and falls for dance teacher Rogers.As usual, there are amusing bit players, most notably Eric Blore, and some good songs, including A Fine Romance and Pick Yourself Up.I always feel I should enjoy Astaire more than I actually do - his tap dance/ballroom style never excited my as much as Gene Kelly's more balletic approach. The best number is the Bojangles one, which is beautifully done but unfortunately, the blackface forces one to ponder the peculiarities of white entertainers pretending to be happy-go- lucky black ones.The movie is likable but gets increasingly nonsensical, moving from satisfyingly silly to annoyingly silly. I don't really think any of it made much sense.Still, if you're an Astaire/Rogers fan, or just a fan of dopey but well done musicals, you should probably check this one out.

Lechuguilla Tap dancing was hugely popular in musical films of the twenties and thirties. There's something rather captivating about a good tap dance routine, not only the rhythm but also the way the dancer stomps on the floor, as a musical expression of assertiveness. Though out of style nowadays, such dancing can be found in many old films like "Swing Time", wherein Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dazzle us with their tap dancing skills and style. And that is by far the best element of this film.Several times Astaire and Rogers dance together. Their dancing is enhanced visually in those numbers that take place in an ornate art-deco nightclub with a large dance floor and enormously high ceilings. But my favorite specific number is the "Bojangles of Harlem" number wherein Astaire dances with a chorus of girls at times, and at other times dances alone in black-face. The music is jazzy and the dubbed-in sound is quite good.The big downfall of this film is its contrived, boring story, which seems tacked on as a continuity device to justify the dance numbers as cinema. The plot is inconsistent, implausible, and irrational, which would be okay given that the film is a musical. But there are long periods of plot between the musical numbers, and the film's overall runtime is thus too long. Script dialogue is old-fashioned by today's standards. Characters are shallow; jokes are flat and the comedy in general is rather lowbrow. The silly ending is preposterous and annoying.With all of its glitter, "Swing Time" must surely have been a welcome escape from the hardships of the Great Depression. For today's viewers, the film functions mostly as nostalgia of the rather unique Astaire/Rogers partnership, and as a rendering of the bygone art of tap dancing.