RKO Radio Pictures
Not part of a collection.
Swing Time
A glorious songburst of gaiety and laughter!
Lucky is tricked into missing his own wedding to Margaret and has to make $25,000 so her father will allow him to marry her. 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.
- Original title
- Swing Time
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- $886,000
- Revenue
- $2,600,000
John Chard
Aug 12, 2019 · via TMDB
Fine duo, fine romance, really really fine film. Gambler and dancer John "Lucky" Garnett (Fred Astaire) is engaged to Margaret Watson, being of a care free mind, and not a little gullible, John is hopelessly late for the wedding. Margaret's father is furious and demands that John go out into the real world and earn $25,000 to prove he has enough wits about him to do credit to the impending marriage. John and his trusty sidekick Pop Cardetti hit New York City, pretty soon John meets Penny Carroll (Ginger Rogers, after a less than favourable earlier meeting) at a dance school. After the initial hostilities from Penny subside, it's apparent that both John & Penny are a dynamite dance act, it's also obvious that both of them are starting to fall for each other, just what will their respective partners think of that then... I sat down to watch Swing Time and within five minutes I had a big smile on my face, that smile was to stay there right to the last second when the picture had finished. Rest assured here, Swing Time is most definitely a film to embrace and cherish. Of the ten musicals that Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers made together, Swing Time arguably leads the way as being the most magical of the bunch. Sure the likes of Top Hat may have more vitality, but Swing Time comes with seamless precision. From the wonderful numbers and routines, to the feeling that this couple were hatched from the very same egg, it really is a marvellous piece of uplifting cinema to witness a pair of performers so completely in tune with each other. The plot set up is straight forward, and we of course lurch from one amiable plot turn to another, but we know that it's all coming together to entertain us via the presentation of its musical numbers. Music and lyrics come courtesy of Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, and they be corkers - Pick Yourself Up, The Way You Look Tonight, Waltz In Swing Time, Never Gonna Dance and the brilliant A Fine Romance. Yet the crowning glory is, and a sequence that should rank high on any list of great cinematic moments, is Astaire doing Bojangles Of Harlem, with black face makeup on (no offencive caricature here), the sequence builds to a pinnacle that sees Astaire dancing in triplicate with rear projection versions of himself - utterly fabulous. Wonderfully directed by George Stevens, whose real father appears in the film as Margaret's enraged father, and containing two great support performances from Victor Moore as Everett 'Pop' Cardetti & Helen Broderick as Mabel Anderson, Swing Time doesn't so much swing, it actually flows along like a perfectly formed ripple on a sea of joy. I feel sorry for those who have an aversion to musicals because they are sure to miss out, not only because of the wonderful artistry on show here, but also to feast on a film that can in a filmic sequence can lift you up out of your doldrums. 9/10
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Apple TV Store
Google Play Movies
YouTube
Fandango At Home
Fred Astaire
Lucky Garnett
Ginger Rogers
Penny Carrol
Victor Moore
Pop Cardetti
Helen Broderick
Mabel Anderson
Eric Blore
Gordon
Betty Furness
Margaret Watson
Georges Metaxa
Ricky Romero
Landers Stevens
Judge Watson (uncredited)
Jack Goode
Dancer (uncredited)
Gerald Hamer
Eric Lacanistram (uncredited)
Edgar Dearing
(uncredited)
Fern Emmett
(uncredited)
Olin Francis
(uncredited)
John Harrington
(uncredited)
Howard Hickman
(uncredited)
Frank Jenks
(uncredited)
Frank Mills
(uncredited)
Ferdinand Munier
(uncredited)
Pierre Watkin
(uncredited)
Van Nest Polglase
Art Direction
Hermes Pan
Choreographer
George Stevens
Director
Pandro S. Berman
Producer
Nathaniel Shilkret
Music Director
Jerome Kern
Original Music Composer
Vernon L. Walker
Visual Effects
The Unknown Past
Words and Music
That Night with You
The Kid
Banat bahari
Rio Rita
Sanjuro
Harvey
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Grisen i säcken
Steamboat Willie
The Wedding Banquet
The Proposal
The Great Race
Eashiqat nafsiha
I Love you Hassan
Mamma Mia!
Leningrad Cowboys Go America
Wife Number 13
13 Going on 30
*batteries not included
Going My Way
That's the Spirit
The Lion King 1½
Hannah Montana: The Movie
Fashions of 1934
A Song Is Born
Jeffrey
Get Smart
Show Boat
Head
Gigi
Indiscreet
Nine 1/2 Weeks
South Pacific
Pennies from Heaven
Fighting
Money from Home
Blue Hawaii
Dancing in the Dark
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School
Waterhole #3
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
Hooray for Love
Duets
Eve Knew Her Apples
Pay Your Dues
Music Is Magic
Cocktail Hour
Blues Brothers 2000
Whirlygirl
Naked in New York
Lonesome Luke, Messenger
Once Again (for the very first time)
Al-Haz Al-Sa'eed
Mary I Love You
Miss Peasant
The Masque of the Red Death
Pain & Potassium
Singin' in the Rain
It Happened One Night
The Philadelphia Story
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Another Cinderella Story
Shall We Dance
Top Hat
The Band Wagon
Hello, Dolly!
The Gay Divorcee
Dancing Lady
Hairspray
High Society
How to Marry a Millionaire
Carefree
Guys and Dolls
That Touch of Mink
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Royal Wedding
Sweet Home Alabama
Meet Me Next Christmas
A Good Woman
Flying Down to Rio
Viva Las Vegas
The Tender Trap
Runaway Bride
The Rewrite
Aug 27, 1936
New York City, New York
Aug 28, 1936
