‘Astaire and Rogers’; `Fred and
Ginger’; the names are synonomous with elegant romance, and they
were never more charming nor danced more sublimely together than in
Swing Time, made at the very peak of their popularity. The
plot is built on a series of teasing interruptions and is unusually
intrinsic to the dance: `Never Gonna Dance' is the constant refrain
and the film savours the abundant pleasures of satisfaction delayed.
The series of Astaire-Rogers musicals that RKO produced in the Thirties
are regarded by many people as the greatest musicals in movie history.
Certainly no greater dance musicals exist. Oddly enough, the dance emphasis
that made them unusual also made them popular. Although Astaire and
Rogers did many things in their movies besides dance - the way they
looked and read their lines and wore their clothes and sang in their
funny voices has become legendary, too, and they could make a song a
hit without dancing to it - it was through their dancing that the public
grew to love them and to identify their moods, the depth of their involvement
and the exquisite sexual harmony that made them not only the ideal dancing
couple but the ideal romantic team. No dancers ever reached a wider
public, and the stunning fact is that Astaire and Rogers, whose love
scenes were their dances, became the most popular team the movies have
ever known... their two films for 1936, Follow the Fleet and
Swing Time, contain the best dances they ever did together.
One can say of them, as of few performers in any art, that at their
greatest they were most loved. – Arlene Croce, The Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers Book
Watch
the trailer here
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