Top Hat (1935)

Top Hat was the fourth of the RKO musicals featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers but it is the first real full-blown Astaire-Rogers film. They’d played supporting roles in movies like Flying Down To Rio (a fun movie in its own way) and Roberta (an awful movie redeemed only by their presence). Top Hat was conceived right from the start as an Astaire-Rogers picture and a star vehicle for the duo. It’s extraordinary that it took so long for RKO to figure out that yes, these two could effortlessly carry a movie between them.

We don’t need to trouble ourselves too much with the plot. It’s standard farce (albeit superbly executed). Jerry Travers (Astaire) is in London to star in a new show promoted by Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). Jerry meets Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) under inauspicious circumstances. She thinks he’s incredibly irritating. He’s besotted by her. The main plot point is a case of mistaken identity. Dale thinks that Jerry is Horace and that he’s a married man. She’s attracted to him but Dale does not steal other women’s men. There is no way she is going to get involved with him.

There’s more confusion regarding Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes). Horace suspects that Dale is a kept woman, that she is Beddini’s mistress. In fact their relationship is quite innocent. He’s a fashion designer and she is his top model.

Much romantic confusion ensues.

Astaire and Rogers demonstrate why they were such a dazzling movie couple. The chemistry is there between them right from the start. RKO’s doubts about Astaire had a lot to do the fact that he was balding and did not have conventional matinee idol looks. But he had charisma, charm, vitality and style and these are things that women go for in a big way. We have no difficulty understanding why Dale is fascinated by him and attracted to him. Rogers had plenty of charm and charisma herself and her likeability factor was off the scale. We have no difficulty understanding why Jerry is crazy about her.

The contribution of Ginger Rogers to this movie must not be underestimated. She’s Astaire’s acting partner as well as dancing partner. There’s the dancing chemistry but the chemistry between them goes much further. There’s emotional chemistry and Ginger Rogers has a way of subtly letting us know that there’s erotic chemistry as well.

And of course there’s the dancing. Astaire had complete control over that - not just the dances but the way they were shot. What really made the dancing memorable in these movies is that Astaire used the dances to tell the love story. These are courtship dances. This is a man and a woman gradually figuring out how they feel about each other, through the dances.

The fact that Astaire had total control over not just the staging but the filming of the dances gave him in effect a huge degree of creative control over the movie. What made Top Hat important is that this control allowed Astaire to revolutionise the movie musical.

The other outstanding feature of the RKO Astaire-Rogers movies is their visual magnificence, and this is very much because they were shot in black-and-white. Filmed in colour they would have looked gaudy and cheap and vulgar. They needed the cool crisp elegance that can only be achieved by black-and-white cinematography.

And by this time the black-and-white aesthetic had been perfected. Everything, from the sets to the costumes to the makeup, was done to look stunning when filmed in black-and-white. Black-and-white also adds to the Art Deco feel. To make this work you don’t just need cinematographers who understand black-and-white. You need set designers and costume designers and makeup artists who understand how to make the movie look stunning in black-and-white. That’s why you can’t do black-and-white today. By this time Hollywood had a couple of decades of experience making feature films in black-and-white. That expertise is long gone.

The other thing I love is the extreme artificiality. There are scenes that take place in Venice. It’s not just that we don’t believe for one second we’re in Venice, what’s great is that we’re not supposed to. These scenes are supposed to look like they’e shot on a sound stage. We are not supposed for one second to believe that this movie takes place in the real world. The rejection of realism is uncompromising. This is a fantasy world.

There were of course other very talented people making huge inputs into Top Hat. Von Nest Polglase as head of ROKO’s art department got the art director’s credit but it appears that the magnificent sets were the work of Carroll Clark. David Abel’s mastery of black-and-white cinematography didn’t hurt. Astaire had a close and amicable working relation with director Mark Sandrich and producer Pandro S. Berman and they made their contributions.

The gowns designed by Bernard Newman don’t just make Ginger Roger looks fabulous, they follow the evolution of her feeling. In the dance in the gazebo she is trying to keep Jerry at a distance. She is wearing a cute feminine riding habit but she’s all buttoned up tight, as if she’s wearing armour. In the climactic dance she wears the famous feather dance. She has discarded her armour. She is ready to give herself to him as a woman. Nothing in this movie is accidental.

Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore and Helen Broderick are wonderful in supporting roles.

Top Hat was a massive box office hit, the most successful of all the Astaire-Rogers movies. It was RKO’s biggest hit of the 30s.

Top Hat is a delight from start to finish. This is the Astaire-Rogers formula at its most perfect. Very highly recommended.