DIRECTOR: Mark Sandrich
BOTTOM LINE: The Best of the Astaire-Rogers movies.
Of the nine films Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made at RKO in the 1930s, Top Hat is their finest—and easily their most unabashedly queer. Eric Blore gives his butler that trademark air of superior fussiness, while Edward Everett Horton, not yet overusing his patented double take, supplies the sort of fluttery exasperation that became a queer‑coded Hollywood staple.
Irving Berlin contributes one of his strongest scores, and the “Cheek to Cheek” number—choreographed by Astaire with his longtime collaborator, and alleged lover, Hermes Pan—captures the pair at their absolute peak. Gay actor Erik Rhodes, returning after The Gay Divorcee (1934), steals every scene as Alberto Beddini, the preening Italian couturier whose malapropisms are as flamboyant as his wardrobe. Rhodes spent most of his career on Broadway; his Hollywood work outside these two films is largely forgettable, but here he’s indelible.
The production design, executed by Carroll Clark under the supervision of Van Nest Polglase, represents Hollywood Art Deco at its most extravagant and aspirational. The original screenplay by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor (from a story by Taylor) gives the whole confection its airy scaffolding, while David Abel’s cinematography bathes it in a luminous, impossible elegance.
- CREDITS
- RKO
- Cinematography: David Abel.
- Screenplay: Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor
- Production Design: Carroll Clark and Van Nest Polglase
- Songs: Irving Berlin.
- Choreography by Fred Astaire and Hermes Pan
- THE PLAYERS
- Fred Astaire as Jerry Travers
- Ginger Rogers as Dale Tremont
- Edward Everett Horton as Horace Hardwick
- Erik Rhodes as Alberto Beddini
- Helen Broderick as Madge Hardwick
- Eric Blore as Bates
- SONGS BY IRVING BERLIN
- No Strings (I’m Fancy-Free)
- Isn’t This a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain)
- Top Hat, White Tie and Tails
- Cheek to Cheek
- The Piccolino
- ASTAIRE-ROGERS AT RKO
- Flying Down to Rio (1933)
- The Gay Divorcee (1934)
- Roberta (1935)
- Top Hat (1935)
- Follow the Fleet (1936)
- Swing Time (1936)
- Shall We Dance (1937)
- Carefree (1938)
- The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)
