Best movie ever!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Songs: "It's Not in the Cards" danced by Fred Astaire and ensemble; "Pick Yourself Up" sung by Astaire and Rogers; danced by Astaire and Rogers, Victor Moore and Helen Broderick; "The Way You Look Tonight" sung by Astaire (the last few bars reprized by Georges Metaxa); danced by Astaire and Rogers; "Waltz in Swing Time" danced by Astaire and Rogers; "A Fine Romance" sung by Astaire and Rogers; "Bojangles of Harlem" sung by chorus; danced by Astaire and ensemble; "Never Gonna Dance" sung by Astaire; danced by Astaire and Rogers. All songs by Jerome Kern (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics). Music arranged, orchestrated and developed by Robert Russell Bennett. Additional musical arrangements: Hal Borne. Music director: Nathaniel Shilkret. Dance director: Hermes Pan. Choreography: Fred Astaire.Copyright 27 September 1936 by RKO-Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at Radio City Music Hall, 27 August 1936 (ran 2 weeks). U.S. release: 4 September 1936. 12 reels. 103 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Leaving his fiancée to wait behind, a dancer travels to New York to make something of himself, but meets another girl.NOTES: Best Song, "The Way You Look Tonight" (defeating "Did I Remember" from Suzy, "I've Got You Under My Skin" from Born To Dance, "A Melody From the Sky" from Trail of the Lonesome Pine, "Pennies From Heaven" from Pennies From Heaven and "When Did You Leave Heaven?" from Sing, Baby, Sing).Hermes Pan was nominated for Dance Direction for the Bojangles number (lost to Seymour Felix for "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" in The Great Ziegfeld).The sixth pairing of Astaire and Rogers. Negative cost: $886,000. Initial domestic rental gross: $1,624,000. Initial foreign rental gross: $994,000. Net profit: $830,000.COMMENT: Another delight from the Astaire-Rogers team. As usual, the songs are so catchy they have all become "standards", there are marvelous dances and set-pieces, a bright and breezy script, a first-class support cast, stylish direction, and production values that leave nothing to the imagination. Admittedly, I'm practically alone in my admiration for the script, but I can't understand why other critics are so hard on it. Not only is it amusing and entertaining, not only does it allow the players ample scope to enhance their screen personalities (Astaire to be debonair and resourceful, charming his way out of potentially embarrassing situations and impoverishment; Rogers to be vivaciously independent, yet most attractively and femininely costumed and photographed; Moore to be delightfully bumbling — the running gag with his ace of spades is particularly well contrived; Blore side- splittingly harassed — a pity he has only the one scene, but he certainly makes the most of it; Broderick wittily wasp-tongued), but above all it paths the way for a silkily smooth transition to the dances and songs. What more can you ask of a script?I have only one complaint: The songs are so tuneful and melodious, I only wish they were reprized at much greater length. I also liked John Harrington's villainous Dice Raymond, with his cunning, shifty eyes. And Metaxa makes a wonderful stooge and contrast to Astaire. (Oddly, Frank Jenks and his comrades are seen only at the beginning of the movie and don't reappear in the story. However, I don't suppose they will be sorely missed).AVAILABLE on a superb Warner DVD.

. . . during SWING TIME, he knocks her down three times. Later, during Fred's infamous White Men Can't Dance number, a trio of Black Shadows behind a scrim seem to be Out-Hoofing him. But during a week in which a couple of America's Most Beloved 90-something gentlemen have passed away, seeing a guy Born Old--such as Fred--taking so many falls in SWING TIME sort of puts a lump in your throat. (Specifically, the USA's original "Help, I've fallen in my bathtub and can't get up!" role model--John Glenn--and the Heimlich maneuver dude, who choked to death a few days after Mr. Glenn expired.) One of the Housewives of New Jersey--Arlene--just turned 114, and she's been a widow for 54 years. Another widow, an Italian named Emma, had 117 candles on her birthday cake last summer, and is the only person still alive on Earth who was born in the 1800s (just think of the pressure on HER!). It's kind of sad to think of ladies such as Arlene, Emma and Ginger being left alone for so long, which helps to make SWING TIME so poignant despite all of Fred's pratfalls. Oscar Hammerstein once wrote "What's the Use of Wond'ring If the Ending Will Be Sad?" because it always is.

in 200 years when we're all dead people will compare this movie and possibly top hat with the sistine chapel can you imagine the amount of effort and sheer graft to get these seemingly effortless routines to this quality they are simply peerless no one else in the 20th century movies put out that degree of sweat and effort to create that degree of perfection if genius is the infinite capacity to take pains then astair is michaelangelo and william Shakespeare and ginger is the most sublime foil and its all so silly and inconsequential . that is one of he other tropes of 20th century culture to elevate silliness to a high art form see the the Marx brothers and spike milliganwho else in this era but astaire could get away with a parody of afro American culture with such grace (mr bojangles ) except possibly elvis Presley but his was a natural gift like michael Jackson's. Astaire's skill was built brick by brick. blood sweat and tears cant think of any other non athlete who put in that degree of work in 20th century to produce this amount of beauty.enjoy

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.