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.

Carefree (1938)

Carefree, released in 1938, was the second-to-last of the RKO Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals. It’s more or less a screwball comedy with musical numbers (courtesy of Irving Berlin), and it’s a combination that works superbly.

Astaire is psychiatrist Dr Tony Flagg. He agrees to help out his pal Stephen Arden (Ralph Bellamy). Stephen is engaged to Amanda Cooper (Ginger Rogers) but she keeps breaking off their engagement. Dr Flagg is confident that by psychoanalysing Amanda he can find out what the problem is.

The usual pattern in an Astaire-Rogers movie is that they start out hating each other before discovering that they’re actually in love. This one is slightly different. They do clash at first but very quickly Amanda falls for Tony. The difficulty is that she can’t tell him. After all he is her doctor. Not to mention that she’s supposed to be engaged to his best friend. Then Tony makes the mistake of putting her under anaesthetic as part of his treatment and the truth comes out. He makes an even bigger mistake by hypnotising her which, among other things, leads her to her going after him with a double-barreled shotgun.

While she’s under the effect of the anaesthetic she also manages to create a great deal of mayhem and get herself arrested.

The hypnosis has Amanda switching back and forth between thinking she’s in love with Stephen and thinking she’s in love with Tony, which gives the plot the necessary screwball comedy elements.

The very short 83-minute running time makes this film pleasingly fast-paced and snappy (as a good screwball comedy should be). Some of the Astaire-Rogers pictures drag just a little in the middle but that’s certainly not the case here.

Having Astaire play a psychoanalyst offers the opportunity for a dream sequence which is wisely not overdone and works rather well. It also offers the opportunity for a lot of humour at the expense of the psychiatric profession, an aspect that I personally find very enjoyable.

The casting in this film is absolutely perfect. You might wonder about casting Astaire as a psychiatrist but since the role is played for comedy it works extremely well. Astaire’s characterisations could be just a trifle pushy at times but in this movie he’s all easy-going charm. Rogers is as splendid as ever. Ralph Bellamy makes a fine second lead and demonstrates his fine comic skills. Luella Gear, a major Broadway star who made few films, has great fun as Amanda’s fun-loving Aunt Cora. 

There’s plenty of visual inventiveness on display here with Astaire’s solo golfing dance routine being a highlight.

This was the last of the five Fred and Ginger musicals directed by Mark Sandrich and by this time he certainly knew a thing or two about directing musicals.

RKO originally intended to shoot this movie, or at the very least part of it, in colour. The idea was shelved due to the cost considerations. One of the musical numbers was in fact shot in colour but the quality was unsatisfactory and it was reshot in black-and-white.

If there’s a weakness to this picture it’s that there’s not quite as much dancing as you might expect, although what there is is pretty good. That means it has to rely on the comedy. Fortunately the comedy is genuinely funny so it isn’t a problem. Rogers in particular gets to show off her very considerable talents as a comic actress. 

For some reason this movie is not generally well thought of even by ardent Astaire-Rogers fans. Part of the reason for that may be the relative scarcity of the musical numbers. And comedy is of course very subjective. I found this movie to be very funny indeed but perhaps that’s just me.

The Warner Home Video DVD (from the second of their Astaire-Rogers boxed sets) offers an excellent transfer.

Carefree is probably the most underrated of the Fred and Ginger musicals. It’s a good screwball comedy with the musical numbers being a bonus. Highly recommended.

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

The Gay Divorcee was not the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers but it was the film that really put them on the map and established the classic formula that would make them RKO’s biggest stars.

The first Astaire-Rogers movie, the 1933 release Flying Down to Rio, had the pair in supporting roles but they were so clearly the highlight of the picture that RKO drew the obvious conclusion and had them top-billed in the following year’s The Gay Divorcee.

They’re not just top-billed but they hold centre stage throughout. While most of the Astaire-Rogers movies are delightful some do suffer from pacing problems and drag just a little when the dancing stops. That is most emphatically not the case in this movie. The effervescent script, the superb performances and the sure comedic touch of all the players mean that there is really never a dull moment. The comedy sparkles and the main romance works to perfection.

The plot is ideally suited to a light-hearted feel-good musical. Dancer Guy Holden (Fred Astaire) encounters Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers) as they are coming ashore at Dover. Guy instantly falls for Mimi but Mimi doesn’t want to know.

Guy’s friend Egbert 'Pinky' Fitzgerald (Edward Everett Horton) is a bumbling lawyer trying to handle a divorce case on his own for the first time. Mimi is his client. Egbert has everything planned, or at least he thinks he has. Mimi will go to a seaside hotel where a phony assignation has been arranged with Rodolfo Tonetti (Erik Rhodes), a voluble Italian who earns his living as a professional co-respondent. Since Egbert is not entirely confident about handling the case on his own he asks Guy to accompany him. Of course Guy has no idea that it is Mimi’s divorce that Egbert is handling. He’s been desperately trying to find Mimi since their first encounter. And naturally when they meet again at the hotel there is much confusion as wires get hopelessly crossed. This all ensures that Guy and Mimi will end up together but only after a series of zany and very funny misunderstandings.

Flying Down to Rio and The Gay Divorcee were the only pre-code Fred and Ginger musicals and The Gay Divorcee does get quite risque at times. Unlike many pre-code comedies in this case the risque humour is not only done with style and with a light touch but is genuinely funny.

A major plus is the superb supporting cast. Edward Everett Horton’s role is a substantial one and he’s in top form. He even gets to sing! Eric Blore has great fun as a waiter, sharing some gloriously amusing banter with Horton. Erik Rhodes goes way over the top as Tonetti but it works. Alice Brady provides even more humour as Mimi’s aunt Hortense, the bane of poor Egbert’s life. Look out for a very young Betty Grable in a minor supporting role.

Van Nest Polglase’s art deco-inspired art direction is always a huge asset to an Astaire-Rogers movie and this one is no exception.

The dance numbers are terrific, there are some good songs, the costumes are exquisite. Ginger Rogers gets to wear some gorgeous gowns and Fred Astaire shows just how good men used to look when they wore hats and superbly tailored clothes. The beginning of the decline of western civilisation can be dated to the time when men stopped wearing hats.

All of this would be enough to make a wonderful movie but then there’s the inspired extended musical sequence The Continental. It was intended as a spectacular show-stopper and that’s exactly what it is.

The Warner Home Video DVD release (in their Astaire-Rogers Collection volume 2) offers a fine transfer. 

The Gay Divorcee is magnificent entertainment. Very highly recommended.

Roberta (1935)

Roberta, released in 1935, was the third of the RKO Astaire-Rogers musicals and one thing is immediately apparent. RKO still had no idea of the box-office gold they had on their hands. Fred and Ginger are relegated to supporting roles with the main plot being a dreary and very slow-moving romance between Irene Dunne (who got top billing in the movie) Randolph Scott.

Randolph Scott is John Kent, an American football player who unexpectedly inherits the House of Roberta, one of the most renowned fashion houses in Paris. 

Roberta herself (Helen Westley) had been in failing health and for some years most of the designing had been in the hands of her assistant Stephanie (Irene Dunne). Roberta had always intended to leave the business to Stephanie but had neglected to make a will. As a result her nephew John Kent finds himself the owner of a fashion house. Kent of course knows nothing about women’s clothing. The obvious solution would be to offer Stephanie a partnership but he takes a while to come to that very self-evident conclusion. He and Stephanie naturally fall in love and naturally there are the usual complications you expect in a romantic comedy. The problem with this romantic comedy plot is that it is totally lacking in romantic chemistry and even more totally lacking in comedy. While the movie focuses on these two it drags unbearably. Irene Dunne was exceptionally good at comedy but with the script offering her no funny lines she is hopelessly at sea.

Fortunately the movie has a much more entertaining sub-plot involving band leader Huck Haines (Astaire) and the Countess Scharwenka (Rogers). Of course Scharwenka is no countess; she’s an American girl from the Mid West who grew up with Huck. As she explains, if a girl wants to make it as a singer in Paris she has to be a countess. Huck and his band, the Indianans, arrived in Paris to be the resident band at the Cafe Russe but the owner of the establishment wanted Indians (the kind that wear feathered headgear) and not Indianans (who are just regular guys from Indiana). Countess Scharwenka pulls some strings and they eventually end up with the job anyway.

Of course Scharwenka and Huck are in love as well, only it takes them a while to figure that out.

The romantic troubles between Kent and Stephanie threaten to ruin the House of Roberta on the eve of a major fashion show so Huck and Scharwenka have to find a way to get them back together again to save the show.

Most of the first half of this much-too-long movie should have been left on the cutting-room floor. No-one is going to be the slightest bit interested in a dreary romance between two very dreary people. It’s not the fault of Randolph Scott or Irene Dunne but the script really is a clunker. The fashion show itself will either bore or entrance you depending on your level of interest in 1930s women’s fashions. The studio spent a fortune on the fashions and the show is handsomely mounted.

Once the action switches to Fred and Ginger it becomes an entirely different movie. They actually do get some good lines and they make the most of them and their performances really sparkle. Unusually they get to play characters who like each other right from the start, which might reduce the dramatic tension but as compensation it gives some real warmth to their on-screen banter. 

There’s some great music by Jerome Kern including some absolutely superb classic songs like I Won’t Dance and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Unfortunately Irene Dunne gets to sing most of the songs. Her operatic style of singing is completely unsuited to the movie and provides a jarring contrast to the light and breezy style of the music in the Astaire-Rogers numbers.

The biggest problem of all in this very problematic movie is that Astaire and Rogers get to do very little dancing. When they do get the opportunity they’re terrific and the movie suddenly comes alive.

Edward Cronjager’s very competent cinematography and Van Nest Polglase’s wonderful art direction are major assets.

After this movie the penny finally dropped at RKO. Astaire and Rogers were promoted to star billing on their next picture, Top Hat. The result was a box-office smash hit.

The Warner Home Video presentation is very good, with some slight graininess but generally excellent picture quality.

Without Fred and Ginger this movie would have been a boring fiasco. Had they been given a lot more screen time and a lot more dancing it could have been splendid entertainment. As it stands it’s worth seeing only for the brief moments when Fred and Ginger get to work their magic.

Flying Down to Rio (1933)

Flying Down to Rio was the first of the RKO Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies, although in fact it’s not really a true Astaire-Rogers picture since they’re strictly supporting players. But it did bring together the most famous dance team in movie history and it’s a thoroughly enjoyable slice of nonsense.

It’s also important as being one of the two pre-code Fred and Ginger films, along with The Gay Divorcee.

The actual leads are Dolores del Rio and Gene Raymond but they’re overshadowed by Fred and Ginger who made such an impression that RKO recognised their potential immediately and the rest is history.



Gene Raymond plays band leader Roger Bond. He’s fairly successful apart from his penchant for chasing the ladies, a habit that ends up getting the band fired from just about every gig they manage to land. His latest obsession is a South American beauty named Belinha de Rezende. And sure enough, he gets them fired again.

They quickly land another job, performing at the opening of the Hotel Atlantico in Rio de Janeiro. What they don’t know is that Belinha is also on her way back to Rio so their paths will certainly cross again. In fact Roger discovers this interesting piece of information before departure and offers to give Belinha a lift in his aeroplane (aviation being his other obsession).



The plane mysteriously develops engine trouble just as they’re flying over a deserted island with a convenient beach. Roger puts the plane down safely. The engine requires only very minor repairs but Roger decides that if he’s marooned on a tropical island with the lady of his dreams then it would be a pity to waste the opportunity so he pretends to be unable to fix the motor until the following day.

Their arrival at the hotel in Rio brings complications. It tuns out that Belinha is the fiancée of Roger’s old pal Julio Ribeira (Raul Roulien). Now both men are rivals for her affections. There’s also some kind of conspiracy by evil bankers to wreck the hotel’s grand opening. That’s pretty much it for the plot but lighthearted fluff like this doesn’t require much more.



So what are Fred and Ginger doing all this time? Fred is Roger’s right-hand man in the band while Ginger is their delightfully brassy singer Honey Hale, and they’re busy stealing every scene they’re in.

This movie is not all that highly regarded by Fred and Ginger aficionados. They only have one dance duet together and it’s not as elaborate as the dance routines in their later pictures. The movie has one other major problem. Gene Raymond is a less than exciting male lead and there is absolutely zero chemistry between Raymond and del Rio.



The movie does offer compensations however. Fred and Ginger do have the necessary chemistry and it’s already apparent. There’s a totally outrageous finale as the Aviators’ Club in Rio puts on a show to support the opening of the Hotel Atlantico, a show featuring not one but dozens of young ladies doing wing-walking stunts in rather revealing costumes. It’s spectacular and bizarre and it’s worth the price of admission on its own.

There’s also a great deal of very risque pre-code dialogue, plus there’s Ginger Rogers singing Music Makes Me while wearing a gown that leaves little to the imagination. It turns out that the things music makes her do are not exactly suitable for family viewing. Ginger is in fact pretty steamy indeed in this movie.



The music is great, there’s plenty of humour and it’s all great fun. And we even get an airborne wedding. It’s a movie that would obviously have benefited from having more of Astaire and Rogers but it’s still thoroughly enjoyable.

The Warner Home Video DVD is reasonably good although there is some minor print damage.

Follow the Fleet (1936)

Follow the Fleet came about halfway through the cycle of RKO Fred and Ginger musicals. I’ve now seen five of these movies and this one is, so far, my least favourite.

Bake Baker (Fred Astaire) and Sherry Martin (Ginger Rigers) had been a successful dance partnership, until Bake made the mistake of asking Sherry to marry him. Her refusal brought about the break-up of their professional relationship and Bake was so cut up he ran away to sea and joined the navy. Now the fleet is back in port and Bake is trying to rekindle the old partnership.

Sherry has a sister named Connie (Harriet Hilliard). When Sherry headed off to the big city to find fame, fortune, fun and romance Connie stayed home in the Midwest. Now Connie has decided she’d like some of that glamour and excitement herself. The trouble is, she looks like a prim and proper school teacher. Sherry assures her this is no problem, and gives her friend Kitty Collins (Lucille Ball) the task of doing a makeover on Connie.



This is the first of the movie’s problems. Post-makeover Connie certainly looks glamorous enough but this can’t disguise the fact that Harriet Hilliard has zero screen charisma. This wouldn’t be a problem except that Connie is not a minor character. The subplot involving her attempted romance with Bake’s shipmate Bilge Smith (Randolph Scott) takes up a considerable portion of the movie.

Connie decides that the best way to win a sailor’s heart is by giving him a ship. She just happens to have one. It was her father’s. It’s currently at the bottom of the sea but it’s salvageable and she intends to salvage it and refurbish it and then Bilge will just have to marry her.



Meanwhile Bake’s efforts to further Sherry’s career are coming close to ruining it instead. To save her career and to save Connie’s ship he realises there’s only one thing to do - to put on a show! That’s about it as far as plot goes.

The second big problem with this movie is that the Astaire-Rogers relationship lacks the fire that it has in their best movies.



The third problem is that the musical and dance numbers aren’t quite up to standard. The Let’s Face the Music and Dance number is much-praised, and rightly so, and it’s nice to see Ginger doing a solo dance routine (the only one she does in the entire series) but some of the other dance sequences aren’t as inspired as those in their other movies. There are also a couple of very insipid songs performed rather uninterestingly by Harriet Hilliard. Irving Berlin provided the slightly uneven score.

Yet another problem is that at 110 minutes the movie it a touch too long and the pacing falters at times.



There’s also the slightly questionable decision to take the stars out of their accustomed sophisticated surroundings. Fred Astaire chewing gum just isn’t the real Fred Astaire.

Having said all that, even a subpar Fred and Ginger movie is still a Fred and Ginger movie and there’s still plenty of entertainment value here. It’s still a good movie and a must-see for Fred and Ginger fans (and I certainly include myself among that company). Just don’t expect it to reach the heights of Top Hat or Swing Time or Shall We Dance.

The Warner Home Video DVD release includes a brief documentary featurette.

Shall We Dance (1937)

Shall We Dance was the seventh of the Astaire-Rogers musicals and more or less follows the formula that had proven itself so successful up to that time. The plot is thin, there’s plenty of romance, great music and stunning dance sequences. What more could you want?

This one boasts music by George Gershwin. Gershwin of course was a composer who tried to straddle the worlds of popular music and symphonic concert-hall music, combining jazz with the influence of avant-garde composers like Debussy. This didn’t prevent him from writing dazzlingly catchy popular music and the score is certainly one of the film’s strengths.

Fittingly, considering Gershwin’s ambitions, the storyline also involves a collision between the worlds of high art and pop culture. Astaire is Petrov, the illustrious Russian ballet dancer. In fact he’s an all-American boy named Peter P. Peters, but he is one of the supreme stars of the ballet. He has decided to get married. His chosen bride is musical comedy star Linda Keene. He’s very pleased with this proposed marriage, but there’s one slight snag. He has never actually met the lady in question.



The great Petrov is not a man to be deterred by such a trifling detail. When he does meet her, as is the usual pattern in the Astaire-Rogers films, she takes an immediate and very strong dislike to him. She dislikes him even more when she discovers that someone has started a rumour that they are already secretly married, and her annoyance grows even more extreme when she finds that he’s aboard the same ocean liner that she is, en route from France to New York.

There are the usual romantic complications. There’s a prima ballerina who is plotting to get Petrov for herself (despite the fact that she is already married to an English aristocrat). There are endless breakdowns involving Petrov’s manager (played by Edward Everett Horton), the hotel manager in New York (played by another regular in these films, Eric Blore), Linda’s manager and Linda’s fiance.



Again following the established pattern of the Fred and Ginger movies the main romantic plot is advanced almost entirely by their dance duets. Astaire preferred to dispense with actual love scenes on the grounds that their dance duets were the love scenes and he was quite correct. Their first dance together occurs in a night-club when Linda is ambushed into dancing with him but as the dance progresses she is caught up by the dance and by the chemistry between them and by the time the dance is over she has started to feel at least the beginnings of an attraction towards him.

That use of the dance duet to establish the romantic connection between the lead characters is one of the ingredients that makes these movies so magical.



The dance duets in this outing are, as usual, stunning. And again precisely according to the established formula there is a spectacular Astaire solo dance, this time with Fred dancing in rhythm to the ship’s engines.

The audio commentary on the DVD is overly chatty and not very illuminating but a couple of good points are made. The superb visual style of these films was to a very large extent the work of RKO’s brilliant production designer Van Nest Polglase. He was responsible for the look of most of the Astaire-Rogers films and in Shall We Dance his response to the emergence of Technicolor was to heighten both the blacks and the whites to give the black-and-white image a more dazzling look.



One thing that occurs to me is the Fred and Ginger movies were all about glamour but neither Fred Astaire nor Ginger Rogers could be described as being inherently glamorous or as having classic matinee idol looks. But put Fred in a top hat and tails and put Ginger in the sorts of gorgeous dresses she wears in this movie and with their natural grace and class they become glamorous. Maybe it’s an illusory glamour, but that makes it even more appealing. After all these movies are not exactly about real life (thank goodness), they take place in a glorious fantasy world where glamour can be created at will.

Shall We Dance might not be the greatest of their movies but it’s a very worthy entry in the cycle and a thoroughly enjoyable treat.