Swing Time

Composite Score: 86

Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Betty Furness, and Georges Metaxa

Director: George Stevens

Writers: Howard Lindsay, Allan Scott, and Erwin Gelsey

Genres: Comedy, Musical, Romance

MPAA Rating: Passed

Box Office: $5,379 worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Swing Time is the 1936 musical romantic comedy starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers about a gambler/dancer whose wedding is called off unless he can come up with $25,000 to pay the bride’s father, sending him to New York City where he falls in love with a dance instructor instead, complicating things greatly. Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Betty Furness, and Georges Metaxa provide supporting roles as Lucky’s (Astaire) friend Pop, Penny’s (Rogers) coworker Mabel, Lucky’s fiancée Margaret, and Penny’s suitor/band leader Ricky Romero, respectively. The film won the Oscar for Best Original Song for the original version of “The Way You Look Tonight” and is noteworthy for its excellent choreography and quick wit.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                What is it with musicals made before the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education and being unable to avoid including musical numbers that either utilize or reference blackface? Holiday Inn: You’ve got the egregious President’s Day number. White Christmas: “Minstrel Show” is a callback to the offensive minstrel shows of the early 1900s. The Jazz Singer: The very first talkie had its final number performed in blackface. The list goes on, and it includes Swing Time. In a number titled “Bojangles of Harlem”, Astaire’s character performs an extended song and dance in blackface and the exaggerated looks of many a minstrel show. The title references the famous black dancer and actor Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and could be considered an homage or recognition of his contribution to tap, particularly because Astaire’s blackface doesn’t have the requisite exaggerated eyes and lips so common with the look, but it’s hard to watch it in hindsight and see it completely free of its racist hangings on. I’ve seen people going both ways on its use here, and everyone agrees that the number itself is fantastically choreographed (it was nominated for the Oscar for Best Dance Direction), but it’s hard to watch it in the present day and not taking some issue with it, especially because the number does nothing to further the plot or character development in the film and because Astaire continues in the blackface in the following “dramatic” sequence. I would like to believe that this was meant as a celebration of black performers’ contributions to tap and jazz and dance, but it’s one of those things that, even if meant well, simply doesn’t come across as innocent or well-meaning on a modern revisit.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                What makes the blackface so egregious is how good the rest of the film is. Astaire and Rogers are at their dancing best, together and individually, giving massively impressive dance number after massively impressive dance number in every scene they do together. “The Way You Look Tonight” is one of the best songs to ever win the Oscar for Best Original Song, and even without Frank Sinatra to sing it, you can feel the romantic power of the lyrics and the music as it plays under the majority of the film. Even the comedy and romance work fairly well and seem to have aged not all that poorly. Most of the jokes rely on callbacks, visual gags, and wordplay, rarely stooping to the belittlement of any character in the name of misogyny or the like, as was so often the case in the 1930s. Because of the undeniable chemistry between Rogers and Astaire on the dance floor, their romance feels like one of the most naturally occurring things in the universe, and the scene where Penny goes to confess her feelings to Lucky and give him a kiss is one of the best scenes in romantic comedy history (which is immediately lessened by Lucky returning to his vanity to apply the blackface, but we’ve already talked about that).

                Swing Time is really a fun, if a bit simple, musical romantic comedy that hits all the right notes along with a few of the wrong ones on the path to cinematic greatness, bolstered by its two charismatic and compatible leads. The blackface number feels so out of place, unnecessary, and in poor taste (and that’s being optimistic) that I don’t know how to reconcile it with the rest of the picture, but I also don’t think that cutting it out does justice to the film or the times, as it’s important to take in all aspects of a film to fully appreciate and comment on it. If you’d like to do that, the film is currently available to rent on most streaming services.