Top Hat (1935) Director: Mark Sandrich
“Heaven, I’m in Heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we’re out together, dancing cheek to cheek.”
★★★★☆
The most famous of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical comedy films, Top Hat is simply a wonderful film. It was the first film with screenplay specifically written for Astaire and Rogers. In keeping with the tradition of screwball comedies, it was characterized by a strong and dominant female against a more effeminate man, popular during the Great Depression until the 1940s in Hollywood. In total, Rogers and Astaire made ten musicals together, nine with RKO, and one final film with MGM in 1949. Top Hat was their fourth film and it features a memorable Irving Berlin score amidst the backdrop of art decko set designs. For lovers of musicals, Top Hat is an essential film.
In the film, Astaire plays Jerry Travers who comes to London as a dancer to star in an upcoming performance. While practicing a song and tap dance routine in his hotel room he awakens Dale Tremont below him. He quickly falls in love and trails her all over London, and even follows her to Venice. Through random coincidence, she mistakes him for another man, and slaps him in the face. In Italy, she develops a scheme with the man’s wife, but the plan unravels. In the end, they reconcile in a gondola in Venice and she agrees to a proposal of marriage.
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Credits:
- Directed by: Mark Sandrich
- Screenplay by: Allan Scott, Dwight Taylor
- Story by: Dwight Taylor
- Story by: “A Scandal in Budapest,” a 1911 play by Alexander Faragó and Aladar Laszlo
- Produced by: Pandro S. Berman
- Starring:
- Fred Astaire…..Jerry Travers
- Ginger Rogers…..Dale Tremont
- Cinematography: David Abel
- Edited by: William Hamilton
- Music by: Irving Berlin
- Production Company: RKO Radio Pictures