Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · RKO · 1936

Pass it on

Swing Time

29Leave it.

Keep the other dances if you want, but Bojangles of Harlem is blackface, full stop.

Take controlThis scores 29. Swing Time cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

Fred Astaire plays a gambler-dancer who has to earn a stake before he can marry, and then he would rather dance with the teacher. Ginger Rogers is that teacher. The dances are light enough for a tired night, and it was a hit of the year without leading the rentals. A house can watch the other dances. I was ready to leave it there.

There is a blackface number called Bojangles of Harlem. It is not a footnote. I won't sand that down for the partnership. The marriage he was earning toward already sits second to a dance, and the makeup is the part a parent has to name. Leave it on only if someone in the room will say what that number is.

Journal

Keep Swing Time in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 29. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Greatest Showman

40 instead of 29

The Greatest Showman is still a musical film, and it scores 40 instead of 29. What you gain is courage: The performers walk into a room that came to gawk, and stay standing.

The eight

5
Industry
He has to earn a stake, and the dancing is the work the picture is built on.
4
Household
A marriage waits on the stake, and he would rather dance with the teacher.
2
Piety
Nothing stops Bojangles of Harlem, and the marriage promise does not either.
3
Courage
The risk is a stake and a partner, not a life he would miss.
2
Republic
Bojangles of Harlem is a blackface number in the film, not a side note.
2
Temperance
He gambles for the stake, and the blackface number is played as a dance.
3
Truth
The stake was the condition for marrying, and then he wants the teacher.
2
Stewardship
What remains is famous dancing with a blackface number still inside it.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Swing Time · 29IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · 20th Century Fox · 1963

Pass it on

Cleopatra

29Leave it.

The procession is the product. The affair is the plot, and the plot is not a life.

Take controlThis scores 29. Cleopatra cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

It cost enough to nearly sink a studio, and the cost is not a quality. A queen manages Rome by managing two men, and the film is interested in the managing as a pageant and a love affair. The processions are long because the processions are what the money bought. I will not pretend the length is grandeur. Length is what you get when nobody was willing to cut the entrance.

The marriages in the way of the affair are treated as furniture. That is the part a house should not absorb. Adults can look at the barge as a document of a certain kind of Hollywood excess and then leave it. Do not sit a young person down in front of four hours in which the lesson is that history is a romance with better curtains. The crowds came. The number is not the crowds.

Journal

Keep Cleopatra in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 29. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry and Household and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Argo

53 instead of 29

Argo is still a history film, and it scores 53 instead of 29. What you gain is temperance: The tension is earned by waiting, not by a body count.