Top Hat

Top Hat is perhaps the archetypal Fred n' Ginger movie, with a fantastic Irving Berlin score ("Cheek to Cheek", "Isn't it a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain", 'Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails"), faultless Hermes Pan dance mutines which show exactly why they were such a celebrated pair of toe-tappers (they were sexy together - not just good dancers), and a typically romantic plot.

Recently married Horace Hardwick persuades his friend Jerry Travers (Astaire) to follow his lead and find himself a wife. Dale Tremont (Rogers) lives in the room below Travers and is disturbed by his spontaneous song and dance routines. She goes to his room to complain: they meet; he gets up to all sorts of amusing tricks to be with her; numerous romantic duets ensue.

Of course, it would be very dull if the course of true love ran entirely smoothly and the typical misunderstandings that threaten tragic separation and usually precede a joyously happy ending are unsurprisingly but not slavishly inserted.

Review by Iain Harral
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96