Light On Dark Water

Weekend Music (and Dancing)

Did I mention that I had finished watching Swing Time a week or so ago? (after discussing it here). These two scenes will give you a good idea of what it's like; they really constitute one scene, from fairly early in the movie, when Lucky (Fred) has only recently met Penny (Ginger). Of course, in the great tradition of romantic comedies, she doesn't like him (with apparently good reason).  In pursuit of Penny, Lucky has signed up for lessons at the dancing school where she's an instructor. First he pretends to be a hopeless klutz:

Penny's boss overhears her telling Lucky that he's hopeless. That's not good for business, so he fires her. But wait, says Lucky–let me show you what she taught me:

Seems to me you'd have to be pretty depressed for this to fail to put a smile on your face. I don't understand how she can swing over that barrier and stay upright on those high heels. There are better songs (e.g "The Way You Look Tonight") and better dances in the movie, but I'll leave those for you to discover, if you haven't already seen it. (There is also a somewhat cringe-inducing blackface sequence, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be; beyond the blackface itself there isn't a huge amount of racial caricature, and the dancing–Astaire only–is stupendous.)

 Looking back, I think it was My Fair Lady that broke down my resistance to musicals. At some point when the children were still fairly young we rented it, and to my surprise I not only liked it, but liked it a lot.