Noted dance critic Arlene Croce considers the1936 American RKO musical comedy Swing Time Astaire and Rogers' best dance musical, a view shared by many. It features four dance routines that are each regarded as masterpieces. According to The Oxford Companion to the American Musical, Swing Time is "a strong candidate for the best of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals". The Oxford Companion says that, although the screenplay is contrived, it "left plenty of room for dance and all of it was superb. … Although the movie is remembered as one of the great dance musicals, it also boasts one of the best film scores of the 1930s." "Never Gonna Dance" is often singled out as the partnership's and collaborator Hermes Pan's most profound achievement in filmed dance, while "The Way You Look Tonight" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and went on to become Astaire's most successful hit record, scoring first place in the U.S. charts in 1936. Jerome Kern's score, the first of two he composed specially for Astaire films – the other one was 1942's You Were Never Lovelier; Kern's earlier score for Roberta was originally written for the Broadway stage – contains three of his most memorable songs.
Noted dance critic Arlene Croce considers the1936 American RKO musical comedy Swing Time Astaire and Rogers' best dance musical, a view shared by many. It features four dance routines that are each regarded as masterpieces. According to The Oxford Companion to the American Musical, Swing Time is "a strong candidate for the best of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals". The Oxford Companion says that, although the screenplay is contrived, it "left plenty of room for dance and all of it was superb. … Although the movie is remembered as one of the great dance musicals, it also boasts one of the best film scores of the 1930s." "Never Gonna Dance" is often singled out as the partnership's and collaborator Hermes Pan's most profound achievement in filmed dance, while "The Way You Look Tonight" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and went on to become Astaire's most successful hit record, scoring first place in the U.S. charts in 1936. Jerome Kern's score, the first of two he composed specially for Astaire films – the other one was 1942's You Were Never Lovelier; Kern's earlier score for Roberta was originally written for the Broadway stage – contains three of his most memorable songs.