I know I am not generally a fan of musicals, but I’ve actually been enjoying them more of late than I have in the past. I’m still not a huge fan, but at the very least, if I want to consider myself some kind of cinephile, wouldn’t I have to see something featuring the best known dance pair in American film history? You know, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? I know little about either of them, aside from the fact Astaire was the one who taught Debbie Reynolds to dance because Gene Kelly was far too harsh a taskmaster to be bothered taking care of his female lead during Singin’ in the Rain. I did see Rogers as a bit player in 42nd Street, but I couldn’t tell you anything about her character there.
However, the most successful of the pair’s movies together was Top Hat, and that seemed like a good enough place to check in.
Jerry Travers (Astaire) is an American dancer performing in London for producer Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). While practicing in Hardwick’s hotel suite, he disturbs the sleep of one Dale Tremont (Rogers). She goes up to complain and Jerry instantly falls in love with her. He takes it upon himself to woo the woman with song and dance, something she often reciprocates, but there is one little issue: Dale is good friends with Hardwick’s wife Madge (Helen Broderick), but she has never met Horace and assumes Jerry is Madge’s husband. As such, she isn’t much interested in making time with a man she incorrectly assumes is a married man. Comedic chaos ensues.
If it sounds like there isn’t a lot of plot to this movie, well, there isn’t. It only runs about an hour and a half, so the plot isn’t really what this movie is there for. The plot is just there to act as an excuse to deliver various song and dance numbers with music by Irving Berlin.
And as far as that goes, the movie is worth it. Rogers and Astaire had good screen chemistry, both danced well, and the songs are delightful. This is another one of those musicals where, even though I haven’t seen the movie before, the songs sounded very familiar, particularly “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails,” and “Heaven”. I know I’m not really equipped to write about song and dance numbers, so I’ll just say they are as impressive as their reputation suggests and leave it at that.
I will say that given the whole thing was obviously filmed at an indoor studio, there’s quite a bit to marvel at. Yes, a scene where Jerry acts as a coachman for Dale is obviously filmed before a screen and without a horse, but then there’s a built in canal full of gondolas, and while the water looks to be at most a foot deep, the fact that they built the set in the first place is rather impressive. The studio here clearly went all-out to put together what was probably a way to put the songs and the dance routines into a single movie for the audience to consume. That’s not exactly unique (that’s basically why the aforementioned Singin’ in the Rain exists at all), and it also isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It did give us a rather impressive Depression-era musical designed to distract people from the economic misery many people were living through, and for that alone, it’s an impressive movie to look at.
Grade: A
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