Swing Time (1936)
Written by Howard Lindsay & Allen Scott
Directed by George Stevens
1998 List Ranking: NA
2007 List Ranking: 90
A couple of years ago, I watched and reviewed Going My Way, starring Bing Crosby, and noted how the film seemed to exist purely as a vehicle for Crosby to sing; it wasn’t a particularly well-made film, and it very clearly cared more about the star-power of its leading actor than such trivial things as a plot or characterization. I bring this up because Swing Time, the first real musical on this AFI Top 100+ list, seems to exist for solely the same reason.
Rogers and Astaire in “Pick Yourself Up”
Let’s get some obvious stuff out of the way: Yes, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are amazing dancers. The music is lush and gorgeous. Helen Broderick, as sarcastic sidekick Mabel, is refreshingly deadpan. And…that’s about it. The rest of the film is pretty “meh”.
i actually saw a bit of this film years ago, in high school, when my drama teacher showed us the “Pick Yourself Up” number. I recalled that I liked it, and I still did here. The songs in the film really are quite good, even without dancing: “The Way You Look Tonight” is a gorgeous song that simply features Astaire at a piano. Pretty much each number got my toes tapping, and Astaire and Rogers’ dancing made them unbelievable. Astaire is the star of the film, without a doubt, but, as the famous quote reminds us, Rogers does everything he does, but backwards and in heels.
Rogers looks at Astaire with deserved disdain
It’s good that Rogers is a great dancer, because her character is exhausting. She spends so much of the film being snobbish and rude (granted, Astaire is pestering her, so she IS fully within her right), and it becomes a bit hard to root for her as the film goes on. Astaire isn’t much better, being a bit of a trickster playboy who finds almost nothing wrong with falling in love with Rogers even though he is engaged to be married to a girl back home. I’m not here to judge anyone and how they live their lives, but it’s all treated so…superficially here that it seems almost cruel.
Astaire, in blackface, “honoring” Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, dances with his shadows
And, of course, lest the viewer get lulled into some sort of false sense of security about the rose-colored worldview this film inhabits, it has to really ruin everything by having Astaire appear in blackface. I feel like I’ve lost count as to how many of these early films have included blackface, but even one is too many. Here, Astaire wears blackface as an homage to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, but I feel that the tribute completely backfires by introducing the blackface. Rather than pay homage to him by showcasing either 1) Robinson himself or 2) one or more of Robinson’s routines, Astaire distills all of Robinson’s talent down to his skin color. Suddenly, the creativity and genius of Robinson isn’t what’s important, it’s the fact that he’s BLACK. Now, I will admit that the sequence was probably my favorite, dancing-wise, and there was a visually interesting moment where Astaire dances with shadows of himself, but these positives make the sequence itself even more cringe-inducing.
Rogers and Astaire in, admittedly, perfect unison
The other problem with this movie, which definitely pales in comparison to the blackface issue but still important nonetheless, is that despite the fun and (generally) energetic songs, this movie is boring as HELL. I know it’s apparently blasphemous, especially as a gay man, to speak ill of Astaire and Rogers but good LORD this movie just dragged on and on. I was never given a reason to care for…well, anyone, and so 103 minutes feels like an eternity by the end of it. From what I understand, this film marks the beginning of the end of the popularity of the Astaire and Rogers partnership, which makes me wonder why this film makes the list and not another of theirs? They made plenty, so what is it that sets this one apart?
Truth be told, I’m not quite sure. The film seems to be created solely around the musical numbers, with the plot or characters given little thought or concern. There is more to the movies than just something pretty to look at and this film should remember that.
FINAL GRADE: C+
