Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.
Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers Edward Everett Horton Erik Rhodes Eric Blore Helen Broderick Lucille Ball Gino Corrado Leonard Mudie Dennis O'Keefe Nick Thompson Tom Ricketts Robert Adair William A. Boardway Tex Brodus Phyllis Coghlan Lorinne Crawford Oliver Cross Jay Eaton Jack Ellison George Ford Jack Geiger Charlie Hall Peter Hobbes Frank Mills George Nardelli Edgar Norton Paul Power Rita Rozelle Show All…
Ich tanz' mich in dein Herz hinein, Le Danseur du dessus, Cappello a cilindro, Sombrero de copa, O Picolino, Цилиндър, 톱 햇, Цилиндр, Şapka, Frakkban és klakkban, 礼帽, Panowie w cylindrach, Ψηλό καπέλο, トップ・ハット, Barret de copa, 禮帽, Páni v cylindrech
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Some hundred years from now, when people have turned into robots for good, this is the movie they will show kids in school to teach them what it meant to be alive.
So many wonderful hats … and such marvelous dancing. Surely they worked up quite an appetite.
On December 31, 2019, not only the last day of the year but also the decade, I visited Fred Astaire’s grave in Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, where he had his ranch and where he spent some of the happiest times of his life. It was an extremely emotional experience for me, not only because I was finally able to stand at his resting place, but because I always knew that the event would mark the end of an era in my personal history—as well as the beginning of a new one.
When someone feels a strong connection to a certain artist, some people might find it bewildering, they might even make fun of it. When someone famous dies,…
"Isn't This a Lovely Day." How good do you have to be to play two characters who have never danced together before and be able to capture the tentative, feeling-each-other-out vibe of that while also turning in a technically flawless routine?
No, you live in a society I live in top hat (1935)
Style and charm didn’t exist before Fred Astaire.
Fred Astaire was the original master of the long take.
Insisting on his dances being filmed in uncut wide shots; Astaire’s demand makes his tap routines into works of awe-inspiring athleticism and character development.
Without the interruption of edits, holding on Astaire and his partners takes on a quality almost ethereal and holy. It’s like witnessing a miracle; in a top hat and tails.
But Astaire doesn’t reign alone in heaven. The wide framing of his musical interludes ensures total equilibrium with Astaire’s partner — here, the effervescent Ginger Rogers. What the two accomplish in “Top Hat” is less a duet and more a unification.
While the plot of “Top Hat” could be explained in one sentence and resolved in…
Watched with my dad. We discussed the odd phenomenon of how Depression-era audiences just loved movies about rich people living rich lives. He pointed out that it's really not much different from the huge popularity of shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Keeping Up with the Kardashians in our post-recession world. People love looking at rich people, especially in times of strife. It's more fun than looking at poor people!
When I marathoned a bunch of Fred & Ginger movies a decade ago, my take on them was: love it whenever they're dancing; indifferent to everything else. Nowadays my perspective has changed somewhat, because regularly watching old movies with my long-term gf has made me more conscious and…
back in the good old days when men could tap dance and women were named “Dale”
I love simple stories. All of my favorite directors work within a simple framework and extract its depths to let me glimpse their magic for a second and leave me yearning for more. I can feel when the magic is there but I'm never quite able to seize it – and that's how I know I have found my little corner.
Watching my favorite directors work is as much an introspective process as it is an outward analysis of the movie. The two paradoxical approaches fuse and morph into something intangible yet familiar. I am immersed in their world, and through my unconscious study of them, I reach into my own depths.
The depth is there in Top Hat for…
Literally every character not played by either Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire is gay
“When a clumsy cloud from here meets a fluffy little cloud from there, he billows towards her. She scurries away and he scuds right up to her. She cries a little and there you have you showers. He comforts her. They spark. That's the lightning. They kiss. Thunder.”
