For Fred & Ginger savants, debate over Swing-Time & Top-Hat is the great divider. For this critic, it's the songs (Chinatown Gittes hums one as he peruses Mulwray's office), steps, swell sidekicks (Mabel & Pop), sentiment and Bojangles of Harlem number with Astaire in minstrel, choreographed by Hermes Pan in tribute to friends Robinson & Bubbles, that puts Swing over Top. If you must be offended, you must, but until I'm persuaded R&B were, I won't, be offended. Political correctness is the new Red Scare, Blue as it were, making blacklists, killing art while business reacts as it did in the 50s with fear rather than education. What I fear is warnings on blackface which precede airings, warnings on ALL dated mores, will devalue the art by eroding confidence and invite censorship, leading TV techs to edit more aggressively, only show films like Swing & Bad-News-Bears in snoozer slots or ban them altogether, moving further towards a prosaic programming where westerns & wars are already pelicula non-grata. As a point of interest, in his 2009 Inauguration, President Obama made reference to Swing in using words from Fields & Kern's classic opening tune, challenging the nation to "pick ourselves up and begin again the work of remaking America." Spiffy stuff (4/4).
Review of Swing Time
