Exclusive“Swing Time” (1936): First Fred and Ginger Musical

You again. What do you want? I want to take dance lessons. You don't want to dance. Well, sure I do. Come on. Alright then, what kind of dance would you like to learn? Well, what have you got? Sap. Sap dancing? No, tap dancing. Oh, tap dancing. Well, I was thinking more ballroom. You know, social dances. Oh, why didn't you say so? Step right over here then. It's swing time. I'm Rebecca Brannan. I'm Tiffany Brannan. Welcome to Real Thoughts on Cinema. One of the most famous movie couples of all time is Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Right. Even people who know little or nothing about classic movies have at least heard their names. Despite that, we've never talked about one of their movies. But we're going to fix that today as we talk about Swing Time from 1936. It's the story of a dancer who enjoys gambling named Lucky. He's about to be married to a very wealthy young lady but his friends in his dance troupe trick him into being late for his own wedding. He lies to his future father-in-law by saying that he was actually earning money when in fact he was gambling and he agrees to go to New York City and come back when he's earned $25,000 at which point he can marry the young lady. With very little money to his name, Lucky hops a train but his friend, magician and sidekick, Pop, jumps on with him. In New York, Lucky asks a passing girl for change for his lucky quarter. When the cigarette machine spews coins at him, he chases after the pretty blonde girl, who happens to be played by Ginger Rogers, to get his lucky quarter back. Of course, first she thinks he's trying to flirt with her, then she thinks he's just trying to steal her money. So he ends up following her into the dancing school where she teaches. After almost getting her fired, he reveals that he in fact is an excellent dancer and the school owner gets them an opportunity to audition at a nightclub. Many different romantic hijinks ensue as Lucky and Pop go back and forth from being completely broke to earning almost too much money. Because before long, Lucky realizes that he doesn't want to earn the $25,000 which will make him have to go back home and marry the other girl because he's developing feelings for his new dancing partner, Penny. This movie was produced by RKO Radio Pictures. The producer was Pandra S. Berman, the director George Stevens, and it stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Victor Moore. It's really interesting to study the whole filmography of Fred and Ginger. Absolutely, they had quite a fascinating journey as dance partners that they made 10 films together which is a lot of films to make together, I would say, and not in a series, just a common pairing because they just had a special kind of magic on screen together that there's something special about dance partners even more than just an acting partner, that you develop a certain bond if you've worked with another person long enough that it's just kind of unlike any other relationship. And they interestingly first met on stage in 1930 when she was only 19 Ginger Rogers got her first Broadway job in the Gershwin musical Girl Crazy. And Fred Astaire, who was already a veteran performer, he was 30 at the time, was brought in to help with the choreography. And that was the first time they met nobody would imagine that they would have become these famous dance partners only three years later. Because after her success in that musical, she was noticed by Hollywood and she was in some of the really famous early ones, Gold Diggers of 1933 and 42nd Street. Those early pre-code musicals. From Warner Brothers but then she and Fred were put together in the movie Flying Down to Rio in 1933. Which was his first feature film. Right, they weren't the lead couple, but they did this one dance together during this karaoke number it was a big production number with all these dancers and they just did one little part by themselves and audiences loved it immediately. So next they were given a starring vehicle in The Gay Divorcee and it just went on from there. Although technically there was a 16 year period between their first movie Flying Down to Rio and their last movie The Barclays of Broadway, 9 out of their 10 films were made within a 6 year period. Right. From 1933 to 1939, they made at least one film per year. Right. And two in a couple of those years. The last of them was The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, which is about another famous ballroom dancing couple who really changed the world of ballroom dancing. They invented the Castle Walk famous dance step. And that film was unlike anything they'd made before it was a drama, it didn't have any screwball comedy elements to it and it had a tragic ending. And their films had been starting to make less money and they were just both really wanting to do other things. She had always wanted to be a dramatic actress and he really wanted to make his mark as a solo performer. So after that film RKO officially announced that they were dissolving the partnership and he went on to make some really famous movies like Holiday Inn and Blue Skies with Bing Crosby Easter Parade with Judy Garland and she won Best Actress in 1940 for Kitty Foyle and became the highest paid actress in Hollywood by the mid 40s. Then in 1949 after the success of Easter Parade Fred was going to be partnered with Judy Garland again for the film Barclays of Broadway but she had to leave the production due to illness so Ginger Rogers was called in and they were reunited after 10 years by MGM. I think that's such a nice conclusion to their story. And there's a lot of gossip about did they hate each other, did they secretly have an affair neither one is true, they certainly didn't have an affair and they didn't hate each other either. They both said that that was mainly the press agents of the studio were trying to keep them in the newspaper so they were always talking about all these fights on set Fred Astaire said years later I've been fighting those rumors for about 20 years and they had nothing but wonderful things to say about each other. She actually wrote the foreword to a biography about him and just said she couldn't have asked for a better dance partner and he always said similarly very sweet things about her and was very impressed by her because when they worked together in Flying Down to Rio she had never danced with a partner before she couldn't really tap dance so she had to just pick it up as she went along but he said it got to a point where anyone else who danced with me looked wrong. Now we were trying to decide which of their movies to discuss. We certainly wanted to do one from the original line and we didn't want to do their first one because that's a pre-code films and their last one is more of a drama so from that original main group of their romantic musical comedies and I think we would both agree our personal favorites are probably Roberta and Follow the Fleet but in both of those they're actually the second couple and I think I like that because they really just get to shine as dancers without having the weight of the whole story on them but if you're going to talk about them you really should talk about one of their starring vehicles and we agreed I think it was between Swing Time and Shall We Dance. We ultimately did choose Swing Time and I'm so glad we did because I know I had read this before but I'd forgotten this was Ginger's favorite of all their movies together. So I think the reason we chose this is that it's a perfect example of what made their partnership so great. You get a good example of his solo dancing, their dancing together. Right. He had a very definite formula sort of for all their movies where he would have a solo dancer himself and sort of a light almost comedic number and then the really beautiful ballroom romantic number and he really didn't like dance numbers just being thrown in at random so he always wanted them to further the story and I think that's what makes their film so unique. It's almost balletic in the way they'll have just a ballroom number be worked into the story so it's like a love scene and people talked a lot about how they would never have a real kiss on screen until finally in Carefree in 1938 they did kind of just because people were practically daring them to. People had started to say oh his wife won't let him kiss on screen. It was really just he didn't like that. He thought a dance can say so much more toward romance than just a kiss and so I think that makes their dances so intricately woven into the plot in such a unique way and also up to that point musical numbers were often shot, they did a lot of close angles they would show just the feet or they would show just the upper body and he really thought that's not the way dancing should be filmed so he really kind of pioneered the wide angle if at all possible one take style of filming numbers show that you can do it all the way through. More like stage performing. So it's more like seeing live performances I think that's what keeps them so alive. It feels current even watching it so many years later. So this movie features a lot of really memorable songs you've got Pick Yourself Up Dust Yourself Off Start All Over Again which is the first number in the movie which they do as a duet and then they dance. First they sing then they dance then of course you have another funny duet A Fine Romance which they don't really dance it's more of just walking around in the snow and of course there's what's a really famous American song Standard Now The Way You Look Tonight which he just sings as a solo and they don't really dance to. No it's not at that point. Yes I suppose they dance to it later. But originally he just sings it to her while she's shampooing her hair as he's playing the piano and trying to win her over after she's mad at him and they wanted her to have this look of really foamy shampoo in her hair and they tried all different types of soap and egg whites that's what they ended up using isn't it? I heard it was whipped cream actually Oh really? Yeah I thought it was egg white salt. That's according to IMDb which of course has to be taken with a grain of salt. They don't always know what they're talking about It does look a little too foamy for egg whites I think it makes it look more like whipped cream It's funny how it ends up kind of looking like a really set like early 1930s kind of platinum almost if you kind of lower your eye and then of course he's singing about how beautiful you are tonight and then she is so taken with it she wanders out not remembering she's got her hair full of soap and then he turns around and kind of looks at her like what have you got on your head and then she's embarrassed His big solo number is Bojangles of Harlem which is performed as supposed to be a nightclub routine framed as a tribute to Bill Bojangles Robinson, the famous performer but it was the dance style he's using is actually more inspired by his personal mentor John Bubbles who was known for playing sport and life in Porgy and Bess and audiences at the time would have been quite familiar with his work so I think they probably would have seen that it was really a tribute to him as well and that apparently was originally supposed to be this huge number of him traveling through all these different locales and we've had like 32 different sets or something and obviously that was way too much for the production, too expensive so it ended up being cut down significantly but during rehearsals Fred and Hermes Pan who was sort of co-choreographer on the film noticed there were lighting sources somehow in the studio coming from three different places and it created these three shadows of him on the wall and then they got this idea to have him dancing with these three giant shadows which is done very amazingly not to sound like someone was like oh that's amazing for the day but really it is very impressive double exposure technology I mean you can see as is often happens with double exposure he's almost transparent at times but it doesn't bother me, I almost feel like it adds to the kind of dreamy effect of it and that's something that Fred Astaire did so well in almost every film, he has some revolutionary kind of technique. Yeah he did that so many things throughout some of his movies with gender but then his later films as well he was always pioneering doing, he wouldn't just dance, he'd also be playing the drums or be in slow motion Dancing up the walls and across the ceiling famously in Belle of New York I believe. He always is doing something different and revolutionary to make it even more exciting to keep the dancing fresh and there are even giant legs at the beginning of that number now of course since this movie is quite old and it's going to be viewed differently by modern audiences I have to mention the fact that he does do that number in blackface. For that reason it was not aired on television for many years as much as the other films TCM now regularly airs it but they often will have commentary and discuss that and obviously the reason why blackface is so controversial now is because it's viewed as a stereotype, a caricature that's not respectful of black people it's like making fun of them but interestingly I would say that this particular blackface that Fred Astaire does is actually less of an obvious stereotype if you will. It's a lighter, it doesn't have the exaggerated white lips he's just wearing very dark makeup so it's more like actual makeup instead of the stereotypical blackface look with the minstrel look and the real person, Bill Bojangles Robinson did perform in minstrel shows which were mainly white people in blackface and it's funny, we think that making racism an issue and being offended by blackface or the like or such a modern thing but it's been going on for years and that in his day he was criticized by people for kind of playing into the usual racial stereotypes Bojangles himself because he was a black man, correct? Yes, he was. He wasn't a minstrel performer I mean he was but he was a black man as was Fred Astaire's teacher who inspired him so obviously Fred Astaire in this number wasn't just playing into the whole minstrel show, he was actually paying tribute to two real black dancers who inspired him and he did so by wearing dark makeup so I think if people can see that in the manner in which it was meant, not as something offensive or to racial appropriation or something like that, it was intended as a tribute to another form of dance style and it really is a very clever number and then of course the theme song which is Waltz and Swing Time which you hear in the opening credits and there's one dance which is non-vocal but they perform it in a night club a very energetic waltz partnered and of course we haven't mentioned that all the music in the film is by the brilliant Jerome Kern an excellent composer and very well known and the highlight of the score to me is the solo song performed by Fred Astaire near the end of the film, Never Gonna Dance I just love 30s music so much that I feel like this song just has that style so in spades, you can't get more mid-30ish than this song it's kind of a minor melody, it's got kind of a signature rhythm to it and he really gets a chance to sing he sang a lot but there's something about this number it's a real ballad, I feel like it's a really strong singing moment for him he'd sing very high in an almost a falsetto here he's singing more akin to I don't know, Al Jolson it's more like he probably, I don't know how much singing Fred Astaire did on the stage but if he did, he must have sung more like this because in the late 20s and early 30s amplification was just coming in so that's why you have that signature almost comical now style of Al Jolson because that was unamplified singing they had to do that to be heard and the set for the scene is gorgeous, there are these twin staircases surrounding this shiny dance floor with then another dance floor above and it's sort of a moment when they're saying goodbye to each other essentially they're going to marry other people and he sings this song to her and then it goes into this beautiful dance number to the melody of The Way You Look Tonight in sort of medley with the middle section of Never Gonna Dance and which of course culminates with them dancing up opposite sides of the staircase and then finishing them at the top before she just kind of disappears out into the night and it's just gorgeous and so much technique and work went into that, they did 47 takes in one day to get the stance right she said her feet were bleeding by the end of it and there is one cut when after they go up the stairs obviously they had to bring the camera up to the upper level but it's just in those two pieces so they had to do it straight through as was his signature style and it's just so beautifully done her dress moves gorgeously Bernard Newman was the costume designer along with Ginger, she was very interested in costume design and was integral in designing a lot of her costumes, most famously of course in the film Top Hat she designed the dress that's entirely ostrich feathers which was the bane of Red Star's existence because it kept falling apart in his mouth getting everywhere and he nicknamed her feathers because of that dress you definitely see all the hard work that went into making these numbers and every number in the film they made, it really was quite a project and the stories are in every one of their movies is different definitely, perhaps there are certain things that you see, certain repetitions but they created different stories and different backgrounds so that they could feature these unique dance numbers this movie in particular really exemplifies the Art Deco style definitely, the architecture the music, the costumes but particularly in the multiple nightclub scenes the architecture in these nightclubs is just so Art Deco it's really amazing there's one where the dance floor looks like the New York City skyline or like from above, it's like you're floating over the city it's this amazing three-dimensional style, it's like it's glass over buildings suspended down below but it's just painted but it's so amazing it's at the nightclub that is sort of built around their characters in the film I believe the silver sandal, is it called? and because of that there's the very black and white and silver motif, all the tablecloths that are going down the sides of the staircases shiny silver I think there's very much a stereotype, particularly more so in the 20s like black and gold is like the party city Art Deco kind of 20s look but silver was utilized so much more I want to say even more in the 30s tinsel, silver screen most of what we have from that era is in black and white and there is no gold in black and white it's all shades of grey so we can see a sparkly silver. Of course besides the main characters, we have great comedic relief from Victor Moore, who is a really funny comic and sidekick to Fred Astaire as Pop, the magician who sort of sticks with him through it all and he goes back and forth between being really funny and very touching, he could be a very sympathetic actor Yes, got to give a lot of credit to the great character actors of the Golden Era because there's so many of them. Another is Eric Bloor who plays the sort of manager or owner of the dancing school where she teaches and he was in a lot of their films Yes, he often played a very small role but just comedic relief, he would just be a funny character and then of course her friend, she has sort of matron friend who is there's sort of a romance between she and Victor Moore but never anything definite, they're always kind of double dating. And she's that stereotypical, wise cracking friend from a 1930s film. Ginger did more of that honestly in her earlier films That's true. She kind of was like that in some of her pre-code films when she wasn't the leading lady. But here, she's the leading lady so the other lady gets to do that And of course one of the things that really exemplifies the 1930s is that distinct fashion Absolutely And you definitely see it in all their movies My outfit is inspired by the dress worn by Ginger during the Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off number Like this, it is a black dress in that very unique style of the mid-30s. While hers is a bit longer going to mid-calf the design of the bodice is very similar and while mine is not plain black as hers, the dancer pattern is very appropriate for such a dance-heavy film. In the scene before she wears a black hat very much like this My outfit is inspired by the first costume which Ginger Rogers wears in this film. As she's walking down the New York street and first meets Fred Astaire on a cold winter morning she's wearing a little cape similar to this with a plaid or checkered pattern over a simple straight skirt, a white blouse and a little tie scarf at the neck with a pillbox-like hat and heavy shoes in the 1930s style Why do you think these movies have endured? I wouldn't go so far as to say that any one of them necessarily is a name of a film that would be in a top 10 list but that partnership people, like we said, who know nothing about old movies know about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers They're very famous just in the dance world when people talk about famous dance partnerships Fontaine and Nureyev and Fred and Ginger are usually in there. I think probably most people have at least seen a clip of them dancing together even if they don't know any of their titles and haven't seen their whole movies. Or a picture or something Lots of really famous pictures of them We've discussed so many things but I think they were just sort of pioneers in the film industry and particularly Fred Astaire with his unique ideas on filming angles and like we discussed always doing different special effects and just really having a dance-fueled narrative in such a strong way In place of a love scene or what would sometimes be a love song, they'll do a dance and they're so in sync. They have that gorgeous quality that you only really get from working with someone a lot as a dancer where they're just kind of moving together and he's such an amazing partner if you watch how he's guiding her with his hand, he kind of bends her spine almost into him in a way that their silhouettes just sort of line up so that they're always in perfect sync. And their style being a unique blend of ballroom and tap is very interesting and entertaining but I think it also was the time in which they came at that point in the early to approaching the mid-30s there had been very few musicals because sound was relatively new like I said, Warner Brothers did their three big musicals but to have a musical of this kind you needed a real dance star. Who were the other dance stars of the day? There really weren't that many. Most of them came later. Like you had Gene Kelly got his start in Hollywood in the early 40s. Rita Hayworth also in the early 40s. Eleanor Powell. Eleanor Powell was over at MGM. She didn't really have that regular of a dance partner except maybe George Murphy. But I think that really it's a combination of the studio system and the studio where they work. Like if he'd been at MGM he would have worked with Eleanor Powell I'm sure. But she also worked with George Murphy and she was such a star that they wanted to put her with actors like Jimmy Stewart, Robert Taylor. But RKO acting actors. RKO was a smaller studio and they didn't have that many actors. So they made one and it was really successful so they were like hey let's keep doing this. So because of that they were this focus there weren't a lot of other actors with whom to be pairing them. So they were allowed to have this partnership that continued so they became really famous. I think really that consistency that couldn't really have worked out in another time or place. Like by the 40s when he was this big star there were so many other dancers with whom he could work. There was Sid Charisse and There's so many you can't think of any. There was Sid Charisse and Vera Ellen, of course Rita Hayworth, even Judy Garland. Right. There were a lot of other stars and of course he did work with Eleanor Powell once but here in those early days of the 30s they were kind of showing how it was done. Right. So it was a great opportunity and of course their movies originated so many famous songs. You don't think of Fred Astaire as necessarily being that much of a singing star. Yet he had the honour of debuting what would become some of the top torch tunes. And most of them are known as Frank Sinatra songs interestingly. Frank Sinatra sang so many of those songs that he debuted or at least introduced to the screen but many songs like this score and Shall We Dance featured scores that were specifically written for the film. That's one way where Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger continue to shape the legacy of music and dance. Those moves they did, those songs they originated, dance routines different camera angles and I think that to really appreciate them, you can't watch just one, you have to watch all their movies but I think Swing Time is a great place to start. It's a fun film, it's not too long, it's very approachable it's funny, it's touching so I'd say start with that one as a good place to get involved in Fred and Ginger and see their magic. This film is easy to find, you can buy or rent it on Amazon Prime Video or YouTube, many other streaming platforms or it's available for purchase on DVD in a clear black and white copy. There are many talented child actors from the golden era but few so remarkably gifted as young Margaret O'Brien. Join us next time as we talk about one of her best films, a touching World War II women's picture all about sisterhood and motherhood which also features a great plethora of classical music. Thank you for watching! Goodbye!