Week Sixteen: Top Hat (1935)
Director: Mark Sandrich
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Writers: Allan Scott, Dwight Taylor, Ben Holmes, and Ralph Spence
Cinematographer: David Abel
Music: Irving Berlin and Max Steiner
Choreographer: Hermes Pan
Studio: RKO
Starring: Fred Astaire (Jerry Travers), Ginger Rogers (Dale Tremont), Edward Everett Horton (Horace Hardwick), Erik Rhodes (Alberto Beddini), Helen Broderick (Madge Hardwick), Eric Blore (Bates)
1933 was the year the changed movie musicals forever. Not only did you have Warner Bros’ trio of Busby Berkeley masterworks, RKO’s Flying Down to Rio was also released. Though an otherwise unremarkable movie, it was important in one respect: two dancers, fourth and fifth billed, were paired for the first time and completely stole the show. The film’s highlight number, “Carioca,” featured Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together for the first time and the rest was history. Starting in 1934 with The Gay Divorcee, the pair starred in nine more pictures together, eight of which were made in the thirties at RKO.
Fred and Ginger are a legendary Hollywood film pairing and a truly special piece of movie history that was never repeated and never will be. Crucial to the undeniable magic of Astaire and Rogers is the performers themselves. Astaire, a brilliant and inventive dancer long before Hollywood, constantly pushed himself to build upon his art. No male actor was as likable and classy as Astaire, cutting a dashing but down-to-earth figure in his signature top hat, white tie, and tails. Rogers charm and grace, a beautiful woman who became even more lovely when lighting up the screen. A gifted comedic actress, Rogers would eventually go on to win awards for her acting ability, including Best Actress in 1940. She also clearly worked very hard to improve herself as a dancer, going from good to great over the course of their films together. Their dances together are pieces of pure cinematic bliss and it can never be understated just how special they are.
The grace in their dancing is unparalleled; compare them to a dancer like Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street, a very good dancer no doubt, but there is a heaviness to her dancing that is absent from the weightless grace of Astaire and Rogers.
The greatness of their pairing isn’t just due to their prodigious talents but also the time in which their films were made. The thirties were a golden age of both art and costume design – Ginger’s gowns especially - as well as, most importantly, the composition of music. Some of the most famous composers of popular music, including Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, and Dorothy Fields wrote music for the Astaire/Rogers films, which feature such American music standards as “Night and Day,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” “Pick Yourself Up,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” and many more.
Astaire and Rogers were the premiere musical stars of the thirties, proficient not only as dancers and singers but as a double act. While we don’t necessarily think of frequent screen pairings as acts, like we would think of an evolving stage show, but there are similarities. This is especially true in the case of Astaire and Rogers, who were in many different films together but essentially played the same characters and always danced together. Therefore, you can take the partnership of Astaire and Rogers and look at it as a whole and see how they refined the different aspects of their act. This is evident in the musical numbers especially, where their chemistry dancing together improves markedly from a point forward. They not only become better at dancing together, but they also improve their ability to act while dancing. The emotions of their characters, whether it be intrigue, love, sadness etc, that they bring into each dance more clearly manifests itself in the dancing. Therefore you feel the heartbreak in a number like “Never Gonna Dance” and the frustrated affection of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”
This is key because the Astaire/Rogers musicals put a much heavier burden on their musical numbers to do narrative heavy-lifting. Astaire and Roger’s musicals were different from the Busby Berkeley films as you could imagine. The songs and dances in the latter don’t do anything to advance the story, which could fully exist without them. In the former, it can be argued that the most important pieces of the story happened during the dances. Visually, they are different as well. Whereas Berkeley is constantly moving his camera to new angles and incorporating new visual tricks, the camera is always from the audiences point-of-view at eye level and the focus is almost entirely on the dancing. That makes sense since there is much more actual dancing than in the Berkeley films, which are more about moving people around in interesting ways than Astaire and Rogers complex dance steps.
The setting and story of the RKO produced Fred and Ginger movies are quite different as well. The Berkeley Warner Bros. films are gritty working-class dramas about chorus girls making good even though money is scarce and the wealthy are no help to anyone but themselves. RKO’s films are entirely different, money is never an issue for anyone (in Swing Time Fred’s character has the problem that he is making too much money!) and the main characters are all wealthy members of the upper-class. No rundown rehearsal stages or fleabag hotels for Astaire and Rogers, they dance at luxurious nightclubs and stay in lavish hotel rooms.
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| The Depression is nowhere to be seen. |
In the Warner’s films, the escapism is that maybe you, the audience, could escape to a better life if you get your break or snag a millionaire. In the Astaire/Rogers’ films, the escapism is the idea that for ninety minutes the poor and struggling audience can enter a whole different world that will remove all notions of trouble from their minds.
After You Watch the Movie (Spoilers Below)
Leaving aside the dancing, Top Hat is a pretty standard screwball comedy that mixes verbal and physical comedy, liberally peppered with screwy supporting characters for comic relief.
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| Crazy side characters are a staple of screwball comedy, and of the Astaire/Rogers films. |
It is probably the best story of the RKO Astaire/Rogers films, which isn’t saying much, but it does enough to get the story where it needs to go and sets up the dances. When it comes to the stories of the Astaire/Rogers films, for the most part, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. Essential it is: Act 1 - Fred meets Ginger, she has initial skepticism of him but they fall in love; Act 2 – through misunderstanding, Fred loses Ginger; Act 3 – misunderstanding cleared up, Fred and Ginger back dancing together.
They usually, for whatever reason, get off on the wrong foot and then are later separated through misunderstanding. Like Betty and Cyrus in It, one thinks something about the other that turns out to be untrue. If they could just get together and speak plainly about it, all would be resolved, but that never happens until the final act.
They usually, for whatever reason, get off on the wrong foot and then are later separated through misunderstanding. Like Betty and Cyrus in It, one thinks something about the other that turns out to be untrue. If they could just get together and speak plainly about it, all would be resolved, but that never happens until the final act.
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| Fred is usually quite taken with Ginger when they first meet... |
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| ...but she is a little more skeptical. |
However, none of this matters because of how the story is told; namely the most important story beats are conveyed through the best part of the film: the dances. Again, a clear formula presents itself. Astaire and Roger's first dance together is where they first become interested in each other. The flirtation stage of their relationship, this dance is fun and carefree, usually in a cute outdoor setting and costumes, and featuring lots of tapping.
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| "I'll be Hard to Handle" from Roberta (1935) |
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| "Pick Yourself Up" from Swing Time (1936) |
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| "Waltz in Swing Time" from Swing Time |
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| "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet (1936) |
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| "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" from Follow the Fleet |
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| "They Laughed (At Christopher Columbus)" from Shall We Dance (1937) |
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| "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" from Shall We Dance |
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| "Bouncin' the Blues" from The Barkley's of Broadway (1949) |
Their next dance is where they fall in serious love. The most elegant number of the film, they dance in a beautiful setting wearing their most sophisticated costumes and in private. Mostly intimate dancing with a little tap. This is a more deeply romantic dance with little to no tapping.
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| "Night and Day" from The Gay Divorcee (1934) |
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| "Never Gonna Dance" from Swing Time |
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| "Let's Face the Music and Dance" from Follow the Fleet |
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| "They Can't Take That Away from Me" from The Barkley's of Broadway |
Finally, they have a celebratory dance after all has been forgiven and they are back together in love again. This dance usually takes place in a party setting and is brief, often repeating themes of the first two dances, but for the most part, it is fun and energetic, full of the joyful exuberance of love.
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| "The Continental" from The Gay Divorcee |
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| "Finale" from Roberta |
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| "Shall We Dance" from Shall We Dance |
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| "Manhattan Downbeat" from The Barkley's of Broadway |
These aren’t the only dances in the films of course, Astaire usually gets a few other dance numbers including one big production number. Rogers only gets one solo dance however.
Top Hat features prime examples of each dance type.
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| "I'd Rather Lead a Band" from Follow the Fleet |
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| "Slap That Bass" from Shall We Dance |
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| "Bojangles of Harlem" from Swing Time |
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| "Shoes With Wings On" from The Barkley's of Broadway |
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| Ginger's lone solo dance, a reprise of "Let Yourself Go" from Follow the Fleet |
Jerry and Dale enter the flirting stage of mutual romantic interest with “Isn’t a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain).” After some playful banter about rain, lightning, and thunder, Jerry sings to her, but his flirting and singing don’t impress. It isn’t until they begin dancing that she is interested. They go back and forth imitating one another, feeling each other out. In this dance they rarely touch as their relationship isn’t nearly that intimate yet. The spirited and rambunctious nature of the dance indicates that they are intrigued with one another but a more serious love hasn’t yet developed, only a mutual crush.
The film’s showstopper, and a high point in the Astaire/Rogers collaboration, is their romantic masterpiece “Cheek to Cheek.” At this point in the film, Dale is upset with Jerry over a misunderstanding. The number is bittersweet because, while it is the moment they fall truly in love, there is also the misunderstanding between them. Jerry loves Dale but doesn’t understand why she is upset with him; Dale loves Jerry but believe he is a philanderer married to her friend. He tries talking to her, but she isn’t completely persuaded. When words fail, Astaire's character often turns to dance to persuade and “Cheek to Cheek” is the ultimate example. This is Jerry’s attempt to persuade Dale, it is a much more emotional and intimate dance, a declaration of their serious love for one another. It is as graceful, wonderful, and romantic as a dance could be and Dale is carried away with it. It is not meant to be however, if they could have danced forever then they would be blissful forever, but the dance must end and when it does, Dale awakens from the trance of the dance and they are separated once again.
Once they are back together and all their misunderstandings behind them, the joyous number “The Piccolino” celebrates their love and new life together, along with dozens of other dancers.
In addition to having the ultimate romantic partnered dance, Top Hat also features Astaire’s signature song and his best solo dance from the RKO films: “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails.” Though Astaire’s solo numbers don’t always have any bearing on the story, in this case it does. Just prior to performing, Jerry finds out where Dale is and makes plans to go find her. His happiness and optimism carry over into the dance. With his new confidence, Jerry takes on all comers, gunning these pale imitations down with his cane.
Though the story quality of the Astaire/Rogers films varies from okay to bad, the quality of their performances, and dances never waver. There are other great musicals, and better musicals overall, than the Astaire/Rogers and Busby Berkeley films of the 1930s but these films have a unique magic to them that nothing else in the medium has ever been able to find again.
See Also
Swing Time (1936) dir. George Stevens
Rivals Top Hat for best Astaire/Rogers film, features two of their best partnered dances including “Pick Yourself Up” and “Never Gonna Dance.”
The Gay Divorcee (1933) dir. Mark Sandrich
For their first film together as leading man and lady, Fred and Ginger stare the spotlight with a young Betty Grable and 20-minute plus dance number “The Continental.” They steal the show as always though with their dance to Cole Porter’s immaculate “Night and Day.”
Follow the Fleet (1936) dir. Mark Sandrich
The story is too long but Follow the Fleet has some of their best work, especially the fantastic “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.”
Shall We Dance (1937) dir. Mark Sandrich
The best music of the Astaire/Rogers films, composed by the immortal George and Ira Gershwin.
The Barkley’s of Broadway (1949) dir. Charles Walters
Fred and Ginger reunited after ten years at MGM, and in Technicolor! Adjusts the story and dance formula considerable but still has tremendous performances.
Let me know what you think either here or on Twitter @bottlesofsmoke
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