Swing Time

Swing Time

For film geeks, lists can be very important. They help us keep track of what we've seen, narrow down the options of what we should watch next, and give us that little feeling of satisfaction every time we check another one off. One of the most famous movie lists ever is The American Film Institute's 100 Greatest American Films of All Time, and after seeing Swing Time I only have five of those babies left to go. So, does this movie deserve to have a place on the prestigious list? Well...

I'll start by saying I like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They're wonderful dancers and have genuinely lovely onscreen chemistry together. The only other film of theirs that I've seen is Top Hat, which threw me for a loop with its unexpected over-the-top (hat) wackiness, so I appreciated Swing Time for actually making sense and also doing a much better job of highlighting how well Astaire and Rogers work off each other. They do the classic "people who don't get along initially but end up falling love" schtick, which at that point hadn't exactly been done to death, but even if it had it still can't be argued that they had a lot of fun with it. But as fun as it is to watch them act off each other, it's their dancing that's the true star of the film. They soar across the stage with seemingly no effort, creating gorgeous movie magic together. Their dancing alone earns the film's spot on that famous AFI list.

The other aspect I like is their occasional subverting of the typical romantic comedy tropes. Sure, the boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl-back formula is in full swing (time), but this (swing) time there's a couple key differences. One is that this movie has a nice symmetry to it. It opens with Astaire about to marry his fiance but ends up backing out because of a pant-cuffs-related incident, which then comes back in the end with him using this trick to keep Rogers from rudely running away with his rambunctious romantic rival Ricky Romero. But my favorite subversive moment is when he knows he's going to have to break it off with his fiance because he's in love with someone else, but right as he's about to do that she breaks up with him because she's in love with someone else. Then they both laugh about how they were unknowingly on the same page the whole time. It's weirdly refreshing, especially considering this was done in the 1930's and there are rom coms today that still aren't smart enough to try stuff like that.

Now, keeping this being made in the 1930's in mind, there's some issues with this movie. Even though Fred Astaire is supposed to be charming and likable, and for the most part he is, there's some stuff that his character does and says that are very not cool. For one, he keeps referring to Ginger Rogers as "little" ("little girl", "little teacher", etc.) and it's obnoxiously condescending. She's a grown woman with thoughts and independence (even though they have her character get engaged to Romero only because she's mad at Astaire). The other issue is that he does a huge dance number in blackface. Not only is this totally unacceptable in general, but it's also completely unnecessary to the plot of the movie. There's also a black servant character who's an obvious stereotype that shows up for a scene or two, and there's a gay stereotype character who is Roger's boss at her dance studio. I'm not giving the filmmakers the excuse of "it was a different time" because there were people who knew better back at that time. These are major flaws in the film and anyone who wants to skip it because of these flaws are totally justified in doing so.

Overall it's a light, passable, occasionally horrifically dated romantic comedy that doesn't necessarily deserve legendary status as a whole, but does have some really wonderful dance numbers.