Top Hat (1935)

****
Country: US
Director: Mark Sandrich


"Every once in a while I suddenly find myself dancing," Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) says to Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) when they meet cute at a London hotel at the beginning of Top Hat. Jerry, a song-and-dance man, has just arrived in London to star in a show for his producer pal Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton) and has been explaining to Horace his casual philosophy of romance. How else would Fred Astaire express his feelings in a musical film but through song and dance? Here the song is "No Strings (I'm Fancy Free)"—"No ties to my affections / I'm fancy free and free for anything fa-a-a-ncy"—and the dance is a raucous tap routine that has disturbed the sleep of the young woman in the room below, Dale. This is why Jerry feels the need to explain to her his occasional compulsion to sing and dance. At this first meeting, Dale responds to Jerry frostily. He responds to her with a level of interest that has him rethinking his no strings attitude to romance.

The rest of the movie might be described as Fred persists, Ginger resists, with complications. It's those complications that are wrung for every last drop of plot to sustain this light-as-air confection of a movie. The main complication is one of the oldest in the book—mistaken identity. Just when Dale is beginning to reconsider her opinion of Jerry, circumstances lead her to believe that Jerry is actually Horace, who happens to be the husband of her best friend Madge (Helen Broderick), and narrative coincidences conspire to perpetuate her error. Naturally, she finds her pursuer a cad and continues to reject his advances, while Jerry can't understand why she won't thaw in the face of his tenacity. Things definitely reach an impasse when Dale impulsively decides to marry a sexually ambiguous dress designer to avoid Jerry.

Besides the sublime team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Top Hat has a great deal else to recommend it. For one thing, there's the delightful score by Irving Berlin. It might not have the number of standards found in Shall We Dance or Swing Time, but its five songs are all tuneful and lyrically catchy, and one, "Cheek to Cheek," not only provides the music for the most memorable dance routine in the film but became a much-recorded standard. The song was nominated for an Oscar but came in second behind "Lullaby of Broadway," a well-crafted song which, however, doesn't strike me as having the lasting appeal of "Cheek to Cheek." But who ever credited the Academy with foresight? And its chances were probably hurt by the fact that the winner was the centerpiece of a mind-blowing 14-minute long Busby Berkeley production number in a movie directed by the master himself (Gold Diggers of 1935) and also that the only other nominee, "Lovely to Look At," was from another Astaire-Rogers movie, Roberta.

The art direction in Top Hat, which also received an Oscar nomination, is by Carroll Clark and Van Nest Polglase, who was head of the art department at RKO from 1932 to 1943. (Among the 331 films Polglase is credited with are all nine of the Astaire-Rogers musicals made at RKO in the 1930s as well as Citizen Kane, also made at RKO.) The great film director Michael Powell wrote in his autobiography that "the most genuinely creative member of a film unit, if the author of the original story and screenplay is excluded, is the art director . . . the creator of those miraculous images up there on the big screen." Top Hat is a great illustration of the truth of that statement, for the art direction of this film is largely responsible for its considerable visual appeal.

The first half of Top Hat takes place in London, mostly in a swanky hotel, and the decor here is pure Art Deco, all angles and planes and architectonic silhouettes arrayed in open, spacious settings. When the action moves to Venice in the second half of the film, the decor becomes rococo frou-frou full of sensuous curves and ornamentation, a look that might have been inspired by the decoration on a wedding cake. Throughout, the color scheme is pale—white on white on white. Dark colors are restricted largely to the costumes, which helps the actors stand out amid all that pallid visual splendor. The set decoration reaches its zenith in the elaborate sound stage representation of a fantasy Venice, a set so vast that two sound stages were required to house it.

In the Greatest Musicals Countdown there has been some discussion of the use of the sound stage in musicals and whether this is a practice antithetical to the innate realism of the film medium. But let's face it—the musical film is an inherently artificial genre. In the traditional musical like Top Hat, the fundamental mode of expression is fantasy, not realism. This is due at least in part to its antecedents in opera and in the operettas, variety shows, and musical comedies of the stage. I'm not saying that real locations don't enhance outdoor scenes and the serious subjects of the modern social realist musical like West Side Story. But the basic aim of the musical film is to heighten reality through contrived and often frivolous plots, simplified characterization, and the combining of speech with song and movement with dance. Artifice, stylization, and exaggeration are the engines that drive musical films like Top Hat.

Now on to the great cast of Top Hat. Anyone reading this is likely well-acquainted with the talent and teamwork of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But one thing that makes their films work so well is the support they get from the character actors cast in smaller roles, and none of their pictures has a better supporting cast than this one. Erik Rhodes plays the fashion designer Ginger marries (you'll have to watch the movie to see the clever ruse used to get around this so that Fred and Ginger can get together at the end of the movie), an excitable Italian named Beddini, essentially a reprise of his excitable Italian Tonetti from The Gay Divorcée. Helen Broderick plays Madge Hardwick, making wry moues and snapping out wisecracks as though it were second nature. Best of all are fussy Edward Everett Horton, firing off exclamations like "Oh, dear dear!" and "My word!" while doing double-takes, and Eric Blore, as Horton's sassy valet Bates. Horton and Blore make a wonderful comedy team, Horton feeding Blore straight lines and Blore rolling his eyes, pulling faces, and drawling back punch lines with hilariously over-precise diction. And I mustn't forget to mention a platinum blonde Lucille Ball in a tiny role as a florist's assistant. (She must have had fond memories of this picture. Horton later appeared with her in a memorable episode of I Love Lucy, and in another episode Desi Arnaz sang "Cheek to Cheek" to a pregnant Lucy.)

Finally, there are the dance numbers, choreographed by Astaire and the great Hermes Pan, who worked on all ten of the Astaire-Rogers movies. The five musical numbers here represent just about every style of dance then current in musical movies. "No Strings" begins as an energetic tap dance and ends as a hushed soft-shoe with Fred lulling Ginger to sleep by dancing on sand. "Isn't This a Lovely Day (to Be Caught in the Rain)?" starts off almost as a competition between the two, with Fred attempting to use his dance technique as a tactic for seduction. Ginger begins mimicking his moves to prove her dancing mettle but ends up dancing in unison with him, a choreographic strategy perhaps intended to show how close Fred came to succeeding. It's a good thing that thunderstorm passed before things went too far! "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" is done as a stage number in Jerry and Horace's musical revue, in the style of the Warners backstage musicals, Astaire performing solo with a male chorus. The legendary "Cheek to Cheek" is the ultimate romantic dance, with Fred in tails and Ginger in that famous feathered dress, together gliding, swooping, and whirling with ethereal grace, like a pair of exotic birds performing a mating ritual. The film's final number, "The Piccolino," sung by Ginger and performed on that huge Venetian set, is a lavish production number on the grand scale, almost an homage to Busby Berkeley.

Top Hat, nominated for an Oscar as best picture, was the fifth of ten musicals Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together and one of five directed by Mark Sandrich. It is in the opinion of just about everybody one of the two best of the lot, the other being Swing Time (1936). I'd go along with that opinion, but if pressed to choose one as the absolute best, I'd go for Top Hat over Swing Time, as much as I like that George Stevens-directed delight. Top Hat is a more comfortable fit with the airiness I consider typical of Astaire-Rogers vehicles, and of all the Astaire-Rogers movies, it's the funniest and the most risqué.

This post is part of the Greatest Musicals Countdown at Wonders in the Dark, where Top Hat came in at no. 11. Click here to catch up on the countdown. You might also be interested in my post on "The Best Fred Astaire Musicals Without Ginger Rogers." Click here to read it.

The Best Fred Astaire Musicals Without Ginger Rogers

Fred Astaire (1899-1987) has more than fifty acting credits in his résumé. A multi-talented man—actor, singer, choreographer, and above all dancer—he was notorious for his unyielding perfectionism: Johnny Mercer once called him "an impeccable workman." Astaire is a true Hollywood legend for his performances in musical movies, but he also turned in charming light comedy performances in non-musical movies like The Pleasure of His Company and The Notorious Landlady and the rare dramatic performance in movies like On the Beach and The Towering Inferno. The ten musicals he made with Ginger Rogers—nine at RKO in the 1930s and one more at MGM in 1949 (The Barkleys of Broadway, in which Ginger replaced Judy Garland)—are not only landmark films of the American cinema, but adored by fans of musicals and many non-fans alike. At least two of them—Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936)—are among the very best American movies of the 1930s of any genre.

Of all the famous screen couples in the movies, Astaire and Rogers are probably the best known and loved—even more so than Tracy and Hepburn, Bogart and Bacall—and deservedly so. Their screen personalities seemed the perfect complement. As Pauline Kael once wrote, "She gave him sex, and he gave her class." After they stopped making movies together, Ginger concentrated on non-musical pictures while Fred made many more musical films. But reluctant to become identified again as one-half of a famous screen couple, he rarely made more than one or two musicals with any one actress-dancer as his partner. Some of those later musicals are run-of-the-mill, but several are excellent, rivaling the best movies he made with Ginger Rogers and surpassing the lesser ones.

Here are my five favorite musicals Fred Astaire made without Ginger Rogers:

• A Damsel in Distress (1937)
Directed by George Stevens, who also directed Swing Time, this movie takes place in England. Astaire plays Jerry Halliday, an American singer-dancer vacationing in London, who becomes involved in a matchmaking scheme hatched by the servants at the estate of a young noblewoman, Lady Alice Marshmorton (Joan Fontaine). People who write about this movie tend to emphasize what the movie doesn't have—namely, Ginger Rogers—and the blandness of the young Fontaine as a romantic interest for Astaire. While such complaints are justified, I prefer to think of what the movie does have.

The delightful script by P. G. Wodehouse (based on his novel and play) with its dimwitted nobles, crafty servants, and series of misunderstandings is absolutely typical of that writer, and anybody familiar with his comic stories and novels will recognize his usual bag of tricks. It also has the archetypal screwball comedy situation (think It Happened One Night) of a young woman infatuated with an ill-chosen suitor who must be won over by an unconventional suitor (in this case, Astaire) who offers her the opportunity to break out of her constrained existence. The movie has great songs by the Gershwins, including "Nice Work" and the much-recorded "A Foggy Day," the hilarious George Burns as Astaire's agent and Gracie Allen as George's dotty secretary, and the classic, Oscar-winning "Fun House" production number (above). Not only an excellent Fred Astaire musical, but an excellent musical, period.

• You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
When you see Rita Hayworth in this movie, you'll be tempted to agree with its title, even if you've seen Gilda. In this, the second of two films she made with Astaire, Rita plays Maria Acuña, the daughter of a rich Buenos Aires night club owner (Adolphe Menjou). Fred plays Robert Davis, a professional dancer who has just lost all his money at the racetrack and is desperate to get a job at Menjou's club to earn enough money to get back home. Menjou, in the meantime, is talked into a scheme to trick the eldest of his three daughters, played by Rita, into believing she has a mystery admirer by sending her orchids every day himself. In the mistaken identity device common to so many Astaire-Rogers movies, she erroneously believes Astaire is the mystery admirer. When Astaire gets a look at Rita, it's love at first sight and he immediately goes along with her assumption. It's never in doubt that despite Menjou's opposition and Rita's pique at being duped, the two will eventually get together.

The score is a bit short of memorable songs, although it does include "I'm Old-Fashioned" and the Oscar-nominated "Dearly Beloved" by Jerome Kern-Johnny Mercer. The real attraction here, though, is Astaire's dancing with the gorgeous Rita. Astaire never had a more able dance partner (although Cyd Charisse was a very close second). With Ginger, we were always aware of how hard she was working to keep up with Astaire, but Rita's dancing looks as effortless and lighter-than-air as Fred's. The most startling number is when the two dance "The Shorty George," an incredibly athletic, jitterbug-influenced swing number. The sight of Rita in a tight white blouse, white mini-skirt, white bobby socks, and two-tone saddle shoes tapping and swinging with Fred is not easily forgotten.

• Easter Parade (1948)
This movie, MGM's highest-grossing release of 1948, was originally set to be directed by Vincente Minnelli, but according to Hollywood lore MGM dancer-choreographer Charles Walters (he had choreographed Judy's "The Great Lady Gives an Interview" number in 1946's Ziegfeld Follies) replaced him at the last minute when Judy claimed her psychiatrist warned her that working with her husband would further strain her rocky marriage. Although Walters later became an accomplished director of light comedies, it's likely that the film was largely planned by Minnelli before he left the project.

In the movie Astaire plays Don Hewes, one-half of a famous song-and-dance team along with Nadine Hale (a delightfully bitchy Ann Miller), with whom he is also romantically involved. When the self-centered Nadine deserts Don for a solo career, Don makes an impulsive declaration that he could could replace Nadine by turning any ordinary showgirl into a star and begins looking for a new partner. After we see Miller's sizzling performance of "Shakin' the Blues Away," it's clear this is going to take some doing. (All the songs are by Irving Berlin and include "Steppin' Out with My Baby," performed by Astaire.) He finally settles on Hannah Brown (do you think the writers had ever heard Bessie Smith sing "Pigfoot"?), played with charming self-effacement by Judy Garland. It takes Astaire a year to do it, but he finally manages to fulfill his boast while shedding his feelings for Nadine and falling in love with the unpretentious Hannah.

Astaire was reportedly appalled by Judy's temperamental behavior during the filming, but onscreen he seems to bring out the best in her. She appears so genuinely relaxed and happy as she places Astaire's silk top hat on his head while singing "Put on your Easter bonnet" to him that this is the mood I always like to recall her in. The real musical high point of the film, though, is the comic novelty number "A Couple of Swells" (above). Judy might not have been in the same class as Astaire's more accomplished dance partners, but her skillful impersonation of a physical klutz in this number makes you realize she was a better dancer than she is given credit for. She also acquits herself well in a solo number, "Mr. Monotony," that was cut from the final film but can be seen in That's Entertainment! III. In it the svelte Judy wears the Trilby hat, man's tuxedo jacket, and black fishnet stockings she would later wear in the finale of the Walters-directed Summer Stock (1950).

• The Band Wagon (1953)
This movie has impeccable credentials: story and screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (with uncredited contributions by Alan Jay Lerner), production by Roger Edens and Arthur Freed, musical numbers staged by Michael Kidd, and direction by Vincente Minnelli. Some consider it the best musical ever made after Singin' in the Rain. (I don't quite agree, but it's certainly among the best ten ever made.) Astaire plays Tony Hunter, a musical star who is close to being a has-been (how's that for irony?) but who is offered a role in a Broadway musical by his friends Lester and Lily Martin (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray, clearly modeled on Comden and Green themselves). But Astaire regrets getting involved when he finds that the director of the play, Jeffrey Cordova (played by the British musical comedy artist Jack Buchanan), wants to stage it as a pretentious, deadly serious modern version of Faust. One thing he doesn't regret, however, is his costar, the ballerina Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse), with whom he begins to fall in love after a moonlight coach ride through Central Park, interrupted by a sensuous, sublimely romantic dance to "Dancing in the Dark" (above, and my own favorite number in the movie).

After a disastrous preview, Astaire takes the show in hand, tapping into the classic "Hey, boys and girls, let's put on a show!" spirit of backstage musicals, and creates a triumph. Like many of the musicals of the 30s, The Band Wagon is back-loaded with one fantastic musical number after another, including "Louisiana Hayride," the hilarious "Triplets" with Astaire, Fabray, and Buchanan as squabbling infants, and best of all the elaborate film noir spoof "Girl Hunt." The movie also contains Fred tap-dancing to "A Shine on Your Shoes" (according to Liza Minnelli, her father's favorite musical number he ever filmed) and the iconic "That's Entertainment." Charisse had limitations as an actress, but as a dancer she was easily a worthy match for Astaire.

• Funny Face (1957)
Fashion magazine editor Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson, above left) wants to do an issue on "clothes for the woman who isn't interested in clothes" and commissions fashion photographer Dick Avery (Astaire, whose character is clearly based on Richard Avedon, who served as an advisor on the film) to photograph the issue. Deciding the studio isn't the right background for the shoot, the two hit upon the idea of using a real Greenwich Village bookstore to stage the photo session. It's here that Avery meets Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn), a frumpy young intellectual working as a clerk in the store. He later devises a scheme for the three to travel to Paris, where Dick will photograph Jo modeling a special couture collection for Maggie's publication. All three will get something they want out of the trip: Maggie will get a special issue for the magazine, Dick will get a chance to court Jo, and Jo will get the opportunity to meet her idol, a famous French existentialist philosopher.

The French locations are ravishingly photographed by veteran cinematographer Ray June (who received an Oscar nomination), and the music, mostly by the Gershwins, is most appealing. All three stars are in fine form. Under the direction of Stanley Donen, Astaire creates one of his most unique and likable characters—a polished sophisticate rather than the wisecracking joker or showbiz workingman he usually played—and gives one of his greatest performances, in which acting, singing, and dancing are given equal emphasis. Hepburn gives another in her series of legendary performances of the 1950s. David Thomson calls Funny Face "the movie that embraced her different atmospheres—from blue stocking to a Vogue Ondine." She even gets to sing—solo and in her own voice—a wistful version of "How Long Has This Been Going On?"

The Astaire-Rogers movies were boosted by great supporting players like Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick, and Funny Face is too, for the flamboyant Thompson, who appeared in only four movies, steals every scene she's in. She gets her own solo number, "Think Pink," at the very beginning of the movie and has a hilarious number with Astaire where they disguise themselves as beatniks and perform "Clap Yo' Hands" in a bohemian coffee house. To call Thompson multi-talented would be an understatement: She was a lyricist, radio and night club performer, and for many years worked under Arthur Freed as a vocal coach, arranger, and composer at MGM, where she wrote and arranged Judy Garland's "The Great Lady Gives an Interview" number from Ziegfeld Follies (1946). She was also a published writer, the author of the Eloise series of children's books.

My favorite sequence in the film is when Astaire is photographing Hepburn in the Louvre and she runs repeatedly down the staircase where the Winged Victory of Samothrace is displayed on a landing, while Astaire tries to get the shot just right. Finally the frustrated Hepburn, wearing a flowing gown, shouts to Astaire, "Take the picture!" and he does. The resulting freeze-frame is a shot in which Audrey's pose and costume emulate those of the statue behind her. Two timeless icons together: one flesh-and-blood, the other marble. As the saying goes, that one shot is worth the price of admission.