Swing Time

“To know how to dance is to know how to control yourself” is the motto at the dance academy where Penny (Ginger Rogers) teaches. It could not be more thoroughly refuted by the first dance number between Penny and the gambler Lucky (Fred Astaire) to the music of “Pick Yourself Up” (composer: Jerome Kern). The scene, as rousing as it is unruly, sets up a turbulent comedy that repeatedly takes the liberty of subverting the Astaire-Rogers myth. Lucky’s love song - "The Way You Look Tonight"- ends with a close-up of Penny with freshly washed hair while the break-up ballad “Never Gonna Dance” is accompanied by one of the most moving dance duets of their mutual filmography. The disturbing flipside of this scene is Astaire’s blackface solo number “Bojangles of Harlem,” a caricature of the African-American dancer Bill Robinson disguised as a tribute. (mg)