# Top Hat (1935)

### reviewed by
Brian Koller

    Top Hat (1935)

    Grade: 56

"Top Hat" was one of ten films that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together, and is probably the most famous of those films. It was nominated for Best Picture, and features songs by Irving Berlin.

The plot has dancer Astaire working on a show with producer Edward Everett Horton. He romances Ginger Rogers, who plays hard to get, mostly because she thinks that he is Horton, who is already married to Helen Broderick. Astaire's rival for Rogers is Erik Rhodes, who plays a comic relief character, the pompous fashion designer Beddini.

Astaire's vehicles are praised primarily for the dance numbers. Certainly, Astaire can glide across a dance floor, and he can tap dance and choreograph a production number. It is apparent that much effort has gone into his performance. He knows how to sing, although his voice is nothing special, and the songs have been painstakingly composed, although bland from being stripped of anything that anyone would find objectionable.

One of the dance numbers has Astaire shooting a row of dancers with his cane. Originality like this is much more interesting to me than watching Astaire flail his arms and tap dance, which Bugs Bunny can do with more flair.

But most of the movie is dialogue, and if you are renting the film for the dancing you will need to do plenty of fast-forwarding. The script is average, with the plot based on a misunderstanding, as if taken from an episode of "Three's Company".

The character with a thick foreign accent, Beddini, is also the biggest jerk in the film. Normally this "co-incidence" would bother me, but I have to admit that he is my favorite character in the film. Director Mark Sandrich should have given him more scenes.

kollers@mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html

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