There's a contradiction at the heart of even the best of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies. When those two dance, or when Astaire sings (the rhythm that made him such a great dancer also makes him an excellent singer, although his voice was nothing special), they're as elegantly expressive as anything ever captured on film, and as perfectly suited to their medium as Shakespeare was to his. But when they're just acting, their movies go flat, as earthbound as the song and dance numbers are airy and uplifting.
Swing Time may be their best movie (it's a toss-up for me with Top Hat). That's mainly because it includes several of their best duets, but it also helps that director George Stevens makes us believe in their love for each other even between those magical numbers. That's something no other director ever quite managed.
As always, Fred falls for Ginger at their first meet-cute encounter, but it's hate at first sight for her. And as usual, their feelings are expressed most intensely through the singing and dancing with which he woos and wins her. This time, though, their feelings are also clear in their body language and their close-ups, particularly the gorgeous shots of Rogers' guardedly softening face and widening eyes. (Yesterday for the first time, her dignity and understated humor reminded me of Jennifer Aniston, while Astaire's hurt-puppy eyes and bowler hat under the gazebo where they sing A Fine Romance reminded me for the umpteenth time of Stan Laurel.) The nostalgia that Fred's Lucky and Ginger's Penny share for their love even as it's just starting to bloom, since one or both of them always fears that it can never be, give this meringue of a movie a light dusting of melancholy.
The dialogue is probably the best of any Astaire-Rogers movie too, though that's not saying much. And the pacing is off: too-slow delivery and too much time between lines leave light quips hanging so long they start to feel heavy. Shots are often held too long, too, in scenes that are meant to be funny. The rhythm is most obviously off at the end, when Lucky and his friends laugh hysterically for way too long. It's supposed to be the carefree climax to a giddy romp, but instead it's downright painful to watch the actors strain to maintain the pretense.
But then Lucky sweeps Penny into his arms and they dance, or one of them sings to the other, and none of that matters. This film contains so many gems: Dorothy Fields' wonderfully acerbic lyrics and Jerome Kern's playfully poignant melody in A Fine Romance, Lucky and Penny's fiercely exuberant—and funny—first dance, his soulful rendition of The Way You Look Tonight, and the mournful duet of longing and loss they do to Never Gonna Dance amid the splendid deco of the Silver Café set as Penny keeps trying to leave and Lucky keeps pulling her back. And there's Hermes Pan's amazing staging of Astaire's tribute to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, in which Astaire is backed up by three giant silhouettes of himself, all dancing in almost perfect synchronicity.
Who needs perfection when you've got this much sheer, joyful grace?
"Steps
How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swing Time
and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left
here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting's not so blue
where's Lana Turner
she's out eating
and Garbo's backstage at the Met
everyone's taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park's full of dancers with their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we're all winning
we're alive
the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the UN
the Seagram Building's no longer rivalled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)
and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining
oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much"
– Frank O'Hara
What makes Ginger Rodger Astaire's greatest partner is the fac that she was acting all the time in their numbers. Watch how she listens to him as he begins "Pick Yourself Up" and then gracefully slides into the number with a charm that's well high ineffable. Words cannot describe the wittily pert look on her face as they go into the final round of laps and turns. Sheer Heaven