An early Parmount Studio screen test report on Fred Astaire summed him up this way: “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly balding. Dances a little.” One wonders how that executive ever lived it down.

For many of today’s film enthusiasts it is difficult to imagine just how popular musicals were in the Great Depression. Moviegoers were passionate about them—and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were at the top of the Hollywood heap.

As the majority of people groped their way through the dreary days of the mid-1930s, cinematic fairy tales like Top Hat helped to strike a note of growing confidence, even optimism—precisely what audiences wanted and needed. And never underestimate the role décor, elaborate backdrops, and high fashion in clothes—all dripping dollar signs—played in conveying such a message.

Top Hat opened in 1935 to excellent reviews and enormous box office. Fred and Ginger were RKO Studio’s most valuable property and hailed as a “tonic” for the modern cinema. It could also be claimed this was true of Art Deco. Whether you focused on interiors or exteriors, there was a sense of brazen adventure about this international movement that provided set designers with endless possibilities. “Deco” was fun and it was vibrant, possessing a showmanship that made it ideal for motion pictures. And they went all the way with it in this film.

The story opens in England, in London’s Thakeray Club, where song and dance star Jerry Travers (stylish anglophile, Fred Astaire) has gone to meet the producer of his London stage debut, Horace Hardwick, (played by that master of the double-and-triple-take, Edward Everett Horton). These early scenes poke sly fun at the stuffy “no-talking” atmosphere in this hideaway of stodgy British uppity-ups, where the RKO art directors have deliberately made the interior as dull and drab as the members.

As Astaire and Horton depart, Fred performs an impromptu and very noisy tap routine at the door—a hoofer’s version of the “vaudeville raspberry”—which gives the audience an early insight into his character. Jerry Travers may be a star but he keeps his ego firmly in check and (pardon me) his feet on the ground. In short, the scene establishes this is a man we can like—which makes it a whole lot easier for us to accept what happens during the 90-odd minutes that remain.

The action takes places in England and Italy, and the sets are simply extraordinary. The London hotel suite Astaire and Horton share is painted and furnished almost exclusively in various shades of white, composing a near perfect backdrop to the black tie Savile Row elegance of the men. Their tails and top hats fairly pop off the screen—especially when Astaire goes into throes of energetic animation, wheeling around the room using tables and chairs as props.

Look beyond him and you will find a mixed bag of metal and glass appointments, all successfully integrated with the other surfaces; and the mirrors and lighting fixtures are a dynamic interplay of ovals, cubes, and straight clean lines: all very Art Deco. A wraparound mural covers two walls, its sensuous clouds and exotic flowers serving to soften the room’s overall effect. The feeling is light and airy, in sharp contrast to the gloom of the Great Depression or the hurly-burly of the bustling city below.

Astaire’s metal taps—reverberating like the machine guns of Chicago gangsters— whisk us back to those glory days of yesteryear when it didn’t take an amorous next door neighbor crying out, “Ride ‘em, cowboy!” to wrest you from your slumber. Rather, it was the inexhaustible Fred Astaire driven off into an ecstasy of dance. And thus does another hotel guest, Dale Tremont (played by the incomparable Ginger Rogers) come drifting to her senses, only to lose them again to love—in yet another twist on the movie’s tale of mistaken identity.

And so the plot is set in motion. The charm of this cast, and a sensational musical score by Irving Berlin—Top Hat received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Song, “Cheek to Cheek,” (sadly, there were no wins)—helps us forget that the storyline is pretty rickety. So sit back and take enormous pleasure in being reminded that “once upon a time” willing servants did linger in the background ready to satisfy every whim; there really were drinks with names like a “horse’s neck”; and even room service carts could be works of “astonishing art deco beauty.” And, of course, gaze wide-eyed at Fred and Ginger’s magnificent display of talent.

When we first see Miss Rogers she is on a divan of classical curved Romanesque design, with the headboard at her side. Its soft stuffed taffeta covering, and the nearby filmy curtains, seem to actually protect her as she awakens. Something about the room’s atmosphere immediately reminds us of Mae West and Jean Harlow at their sultry, shimmering, seductive best. This is especially true when Ginger’s character throws on another layer of floating silk and marches confidently upstairs to confront whoever has so rudely awakened her.

In Art Deco detail is all. Serving to heighten the feeling of romance and fantasy these sets evoke, you will discover layers of exquisitely applied decorative imagery—including heavily stylized exotic birds, masks, harlequins, even an absolute knock-out of a wedding cake. “Deco” was almost always greedily derivative, so don’t forget to look for evidence of an Egyptian influence, which was eagerly absorbed after the 1921 discovery of King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, 3000 years after it was sealed shut, supposedly forever.

In the movie’s most poetic moment Fred and Ginger are dancing in an ornate gazebo during a thunderstorm—this being nothing more or less than extended foreplay. (Fred Astaire, later in life: “Ginger was able to accomplish sex through dance. We told more through our movements instead of the big clinch. We did it all in the dance.”)

In a 1991 autobiography, Rogers took credit for the idea of “shadowing” (her word) Fred’s movement when she first joins him in dance and for suggesting the delightful ending of this routine—thus getting some gentle revenge on Astaire and his choreographer Hermes Pan both of whom, she thought, seemed to lay claim to all the glory in the beginning.

All the plot ingredients having been set in motion—most importantly the almost instantaneous sexual tension that occurs between Dale Tremont and Jerry Travers when they meet—the action switches to Venice. And now the film’s sets expand from merely grand to in-your-face. Ginger Rogers later said that the Lido canal set—complete with bridges, gondolas and motor launches—was “the most extravagant…‘Big White Set’ to date. But about as Italian as Pat O’Brien.” She was not without a sense of humor about her work.

As way over the top as it is, it sure does add to the visual fun. The hotel itself has glistening marble floors befitting the villa of an early Roman senator, high-spirited moldings and friezes, and immense balconies with four-leaf-clovers stamped through them to accent the cheerful mood of the architecture. There are also wide, beckoning staircases and everywhere you will see luxurious ornamentation. The honeymoon suite—where all the story’s complications are finally unraveled—is about as zingy as you can get, and seems perfectly in step with the pure silliness of the dialogue.

Not quite a screwball comedy (although look for a young and blonde Lucille Ball as an assistant in the hotel flower shop), Top Hat has enough period wit and general merriment to keep you chuckling away happily. Leaving aside an occasional lapse into frustration while waiting for this comedy of errors to eventually be cleared up, you really do believe that these two stars are “in heaven” when “dancing cheek-to-cheek.”

For what it’s worth my aging budgie, now increasingly a quiet little fellow, didn’t stop chirping and hopping around throughout the entire film. I expect now I will have to redecorate his cage. Anybody know where I can find an art deco swing?

Copyright © 2006 by Michael Orr

Michael has written numerous short subject films and documentaries, been a speechwriter and a journalist. He fell in love with movies as a youngster and continues to publish essays about American cinema. Of special interest is the late 1920s when “silents, talkies, and radio all violently collide resulting in a cinematic cosmic big bang”—the focus of his novel Hollywood’s A Scary Place! to be released this year. He makes his home in Toronto. He also “doctors” other people’s work and ghostwrites on occasion when the assignment is of interest. You may contact him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

“Hollywood Popcorn: Did You Know… ?”

1. Despite being singled out as “Best Dressed Man of our Time” in 1980, Fred Astaire actually hated new clothes. "People think I was born in top hat and tails," he once commented. Astaire actually detested formal attire regarding them purely as his work clothes: a sort of costume. When his regular order from a Savile Row tailor arrived he would insist his chauffer (whom he hired more because they were the same size than his driving abilities) wear the clothes for at least a month before he would take them to the studio. About the only thing not made for him in London, England were his shoes (size 8 ½). For this he chose a Los Angeles firm and would go through several dozen pair during the making of a film—with every 100th pair free.

2. His tailor was Anderson and Sheppard, 30 Savile Row. The same place that provided clothes for author Leslie Charteris (creator of The Saint), and many other famous actors and writers. They have recently moved around the corner to 32 Burlington Street; but it is good to remember now that the staff would roll the run back when Fred Astaire came for a fitting “so he could dance and check the fit of his coat never came away from his collar.” He was a perfectionist; so was his tailor.

3. Born Frederic Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 10, 1899, Fred Astaire died of pneumonia in Los Angeles on June 22, 1987. When asked about his technique—which other dancers have described as flawless—as detailed as he ever got was: “I just put my feet in the air and move them around.”

4. Long after the dance routines were over, he continued to work. Astaire was part of an all star cast (including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, and Richard Chamberlain) in the blockbuster, The Towering Inferno (1974). For his role as a jewel thief—beautifully dressed, of course—he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination. His final film appearance was in Ghost Story in 1981.

5. Although Astaire and Rogers will be forever twinned, some of his other partners were Judy Garland, Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth, Betty Hutton and Cyd Charisse.
Fred Astaire was honored with a Special Award Oscar in Los Angeles, March 23, 1950 “for his unique artistry and his contributions to the technique of musical pictures.” Astaire was 5 ft. 9 inches; Rogers was 5 ft. 4 ½ inches tall.

6. Born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911, Ginger Rogers died in California, April 25, 1995. She acquired the name “Ginger” when her young cousin couldn’t say “Virginia.” Rogers’ last feature film appearance was in Harlow in 1965, after which she returned to the stage.

7. While in Hello Dolly (1965-68), devoted fan Colonel Harlan Sanders learned that Ginger would not leave the theatre between shows on matinee days—so he arranged to have his famous Kentucky Fried Chicken delivered to her dressing room every Wednesday and Saturday for the run of the show.

8. Her favorite cartoon was from the Frank and Ernest comic strip. Standing outside a theatre, featuring a “Fred Astaire Festival,” a woman remarks: “Sure he was great, but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did…backwards and in high heels!”

9. “Cigarette me, big boy,” from Rogers’ first film, Young Man of Manhattan (1930) became something of a fad line for young women of the time.

10. When people talked too much about “Astaire & Rogers,” Ginger enjoyed reminding them: “For every film we did, I did three or four on my own.” On February 27, 1941 she
was presented with an Oscar for Kitty Foyle, a dramatic part in which she played a woman from the wrong side of the tracks.

11. If Edward Everett Horton’s voice sounds oddly familiar you may have heard him first not in film but as the narrator of “Fractured Fairy Tales,” a regular segment of Jay Ward’s incredibly popular Rocky and Bullwinkle (which was on-the-air from 1959 until 1974).

12. In 1935 Top Hat was the second biggest money-maker of the year, right behind Mutiny on the Bounty with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable. The film raked in four times its cost. Top Hat was also nominated in the Best Picture category, but lost to Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton—the only film that year to surpass Top Hat’s $3 million plus in box-office revenues.

13. In the beginning, Astaire would rehearse with his male collaborator, Hermes Pan who would take Ginger’s role. Pan would then teach the steps to Ginger, and only then would Fred and Ginger dance together. After all that, Astaire and Pan would add the tap dancing to the soundtrack. This changed somewhat as Astaire’s appreciation of Ginger’s talent and hard work won him over. Much later he would say of her: “Ginger was brilliantly effective. She made everything work for her. Actually she made things very fine for the both of us and she deserves most of the credit for our success.”