If you get a sec, do read a review of two recent books about Astaire and Rogers, Hannah Hyam's Fred & Ginger (Pen Press Publishers) and Joseph Epstein's Fred Astaire (Yale University Press), that ran in Sunday's NYT. Miraculously, the piece manages not to draw too many parallels between the Great Depression that spawned their RKO Deco baubles and today's economy. [Although mention is made of "So You Think You Can Dance" and its role in repopularizing--and I'd say bastardizing, if I could bring myself to watch it, that is--ballroom dancing. Sigh.] Better still, a passage in it caused me to revisit and reconsider a number from Swing Time (1936) I'd always dismissed, "The Waltz in Swing Time" [above].
As Ms. Hyam proceeds, she makes points that send you back to watch the
films again. Of the "Waltz in Swing Time" she quotes both Ms. Croce [The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book, 1972] and
Mr. Mueller [Astaire Dancing, 1986] to good effect before adding, "One astonishing sequence
among the so many: when Rogers, facing Astaire, joyfully curves her
body for him to vault over it, twice, and a third time presents her
slightly inclined back for him to repeat this most intimate maneuver —
just before they both rush headlong, in each other's arms, into the
final stage of the dance." When you check it out, you find that you
love the number even more as a result.
YMMV, but it's quite something.
