Swing Time is a 1936 American musical comedy film, the sixth of ten starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Set mainly in New York City, the film follows a gambler and dancer, "Lucky" (Astaire), who is trying to raise money to secure his marriage when he meets a dance instructor, Penny (Rogers), and begins dancing with her; the two soon fall in love and are forced to reconcile their feelings.
Jerome Kern's score, the first of two that he composed specially for Astaire films, contains three of his most memorable songs.
[10] Rogers credited much of the film's success to Stevens: "He gave us a certain quality, I think, that made it stand out above the others.
"[5] Swing Time also marked the beginning of a decline in popularity of the Astaire–Rogers partnership among the general public, with box-office receipts falling faster than usual after a successful opening.
[11] Nevertheless, the film was a sizable hit, costing $886,000, grossing over $2,600,000 worldwide, and showing a net profit of $830,000.
In 2004, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
"Pop" Cardetti takes Lucky's trousers to be altered by sewing cuffs, while the others begin a crap game.
The cigarette machine dumps a load of coins, so they follow Penny and offer to repurchase the quarter, but she is in no mood to deal with them.
Gordon gives Penny back her job, and sets up an audition with the owner of the Silver Sandal nightclub.
At the Silver Sandal, bandleader Ricardo Romero, who wants to marry Penny, refuses to play for them.
Before shooting started in April 1936, Scott was called back from New York to write additional dialogue.
Next, Astaire was filmed performing under normal lighting in front of another white screen while watching a projection of the dancing shadow, and the four shots were optically combined.
[1] The New York street scenes were shot on Paramount's back lot, the train station interiors and exteriors at the Los Angeles Santa Fe Railroad Station, and the freight yard scene was shot in downtown Los Angeles.
[14] Musical notes According to RKO records, the film made $1,624,000 in the U.S. and Canada, and $994,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $830,000.
The site's critical consensus reads: "Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire are brilliant in Swing Time, one of the duo's most charming and wonderfully choreographed films.
"[18] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 91 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
[1] A Broadway musical based on the film, Never Gonna Dance, used much of Kern and Fields's original score.
[21][1] The film lends its title to Zadie Smith's 2016 novel Swing Time, in which it is a recurring plot device.
These releases feature a commentary by John Mueller, author of Astaire Dancing – The Musical Films.
On June 11, 2019, The Criterion Collection released the movie in the United States on Blu-ray and DVD formats.