Swing Time

Lucky Garnett is a dancer and gambler who is set to marry Margaret Watson, but a prank by the other members of Pop Cardetti's troupe makes him late to his own wedding. Margaret's father, a judge, agrees to let the marriage go ahead only if Lucky first goes to New York and proves himself by earning twenty-five thousand dollars. Lucky sets off with Pop, and in the city he meets Penny Carroll, a dance instructor. The two become a successful professional dance team, while their growing feelings for each other are complicated by Lucky's engagement to Margaret and by Penny's attachment to another man.

George Stevens directed the film, which followed his Annie Oakley (1935) and came before A Damsel in Distress (1937) among the films he made. Howard Lindsay and Allan Scott wrote the screenplay, and Pandro S. Berman produced it for RKO Radio Pictures. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers star as Lucky and Penny, with Victor Moore as Pop, Helen Broderick as Mabel Anderson, Eric Blore as Gordon and Betty Furness as Margaret, in a credited cast of twenty.

The film runs 103 minutes and was released in August 1936. It took about three million dollars at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.4 from roughly sixteen thousand votes, while on TMDB its rating is 6.8 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 8.9 from twenty-nine reviews places it well above both audience scores.