Swing Time 1936

     Lucky Garnett is tricked into missing his wedding to Margaret Anderson?  The other members of Pop’s magic and dance act keep him occupied and he loses track of the time.  The situation now is that he will need to make $25,000 to be allowed to marry her.  Lucky and Pop go to New York where they meet Penny and she is a dancing instructor.  She doesn’t know that Lucky is a professional dancer until she starts teaching him.  Penny and Lucky form a successful dance partnership and they start to like each other too!!  Lucky still has his arrangement with Margaret?  Penny has been seeing Ricardo, the bandleader.  Ricardo will not play the music if Lucky and Penny dance together because of his jealousy.  Ricardo asks Penny to marry him and he gives her an engagement ring.  Lucky has made the $25,000 to marry Margaret but what will happen between Lucky and Penny now??

     There is one of the dance numbers with Rogers wearing a very flowing dress.  It really makes the dancing come alive because the way it swirls with her body.  Rogers and Astaire were very good together as a dance team.  I think this film seems to follow a regular pattern with musicals??  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)

103 min, Musical directed by George Stevens with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Betty Furness, Georges Metaxa.

Note:  Imdb 7.6 out of 10, Roger Ebert 4*, Rotten Tomatoes 100% critic 87% audience, Slant Magazine 4* out of 5* Dan Callahan, Letterboxd 3.6* out of 5*, EyeforFilm 5* Chris, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 134 reviews, 20/20 Movie Reviews 3* out of 4*, TCM Leonard Maltin 4*, average user rating 4.55* out of 5*.

Special Note:  Filmed in La Grande Station, Downtown, Los Angeles, California and Paramount Studios, Los Angeles, California during the bleakness of the depression.  The dance number Never Gonna Dance took 47 takes in a single day and required many demanding spins for Ginger Rogers.  At the end of the day, her feet were bleeding!!  This is Ginger Rogers’ favorite of her films with Fred Astaire.  This is the sixth of ten dancing partnerships of Astaire and Rogers.  In The Way You Look Tonight scenes, Ginger Rogers is seen washing her hair.  The crew tried various soaps, shampoos and egg whites.  They always ran down her face too quickly and spoiled the shoot.  The right look was achieved with whipped cream?  In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this film as #90 Greatest Movie of All Time. Interestingly, the names of the lead actors in this film are Lucky Penny.