Alternative Oscars (1936) - Top Hat

As a self-confessed admirer of Hollywood's Golden Age, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I don't generally like musicals. 'Singing In The Rain' is the obvious exception to this, but even that I admire less for its songs than the picture it paints of early Hollywood itself.

However, even I can't deny Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had something special. 

'Top Hat' was the fourth of ten feature films Fred and Ginger made together and is probably the best illustration of their particular blend of screwball comedy and musical.

The characteristically daft plot need not detain us too much (and is perhaps the reason I don't generally get on with musicals?) Astaire's character, Jerry Travers, is in London to meet theatre impressario Horace Hardwick, with a view to working together. Fred's impromptu tap routine in Hardwicke's appartment disturbs Dale Tremont (Rogers) in the apartment downstairs. 

Jerry is immediately smitten and begins a relentless pursuit of the frosty Dale across Europe, one that would certainly merit a restraining order if happening today. It's not quite as awkward as it sounds, as Dale likes him really - she's just playing hard to get. There is the added complication that, thanks to the mistaken identity above, she spends most of the film thinking Jerry is actually Hardwick, who happens to be already married.

So far, so Fred and Ginger. Of course, it's the chemistry between the two actors that elevates the film to another level. 

It was often said that he gave her class and she gave him sex (or sexiness). Certainly this sexuality makes Ginger seem a very modern screen siren, compared to many of her guileless contemporaries. Astaire has always struck me as the most unlikely romatic lead. There is something odd-looking, almost cadaverous about him. But with those dancing feet, no one was looking at his face. 

The film isn't without it's humour. Much of it centres around Horace Hardwick, whether his Jeeves & Wooster-like dynamic with butler Bates, or his relationship with his long-suffering wife, Madge, who, at the mention of divorce, memorably quips, "he'll probably want me to pay myself alimony."

Bates and Hardwick

There are moments of unintentional comedy too, such as Astaire's imitation of a Cockney cabbie that would put even Dick Van Dyke to shame.

But essentially a musical is only as good as its music and Top Hat has songs by the great Irving Berlin.  And then there's the dancing... 

                                                                                                

                                             

And while we're mentioning the dancing we should once more acknowledge Ginger Rogers, who, as Bob Thaves remarked, did (almost) everything Fred did. But backwards. And in high heels.