Dancing Cheek To Cheek- Again-Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s “Top Hat” (1935)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Senior Film Critic Sandy Salmon

Top Hat, starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, music by Irving Berlin, 1935

No, I will not start this review of what even to me seems like a never-ending series of dance films by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire reminding me of the never-ending Bob Dylan concert tours (and bootleg CD volumes) or the William Powell and Myrna Loy Nick and Nora Charles The Thin Man series going on and on about the superiority of Mr. Astaire’s dancing and grace compared to Mr. Gene Kelly based on the latter’s performance in the Gershwin-etched An American In Paris. Doing so would be merely overkill since once again in this film Mr. Astaire shows what grace, style and athleticism (the one attribute in which Mr. Kelly has an edge over Mr. Astaire) combined looks like when the hammer goes down. My understanding is the film under review Top Hat was one of the ten that this well-known dance pair did together although it seems like I did many more reviews than that already rather large number.

Since the real deal in these Astaire-Rogers pairings is the dancing this review can be mercifully short and sweet. After all nobody has ever accused the screenwriters of these frilly things of writing Oscar-worthy material to back up the dancing and the music by the likes of Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter or as here Irving Berlin. Here is the “skinny,” very skinny as my old friend and colleague Sam Lowell is fond of saying. Top Broadway musical showman Jerry, Fred Astaire’s role, is in London to bail out some producer’s musical when along the way he meets, well who else, Dale, played by Ginger Rogers, who seems to be some kind of model for an upscale high society Italian fashion designer. Naturally Jerry goes bug-eyed when he spies Dale and makes his big play. She somewhat guardedly is intrigued by him (after out of nowhere doing a serious pair dance with him out in the park which either meant something was in the water or that the dance indicated in an unspoken way that they were kindred spirits-you figure it out).

   

All well and good although this would be an extremely short film with basically nothing else but dancing and singing if it was left to that. What keeps the thing moving along a bit is a case of mistaken identity. Dale is led to believe that Jerry is the producer who just so happens to be married and therefore nothing but a cad and ne’er-do-well even if he can dance up a storm. Moreover, supposedly married to a good friend of hers. This miscue business takes them eventually to Italy where the thing gets played out and resolved in Jerry’s favor after a few more songs and a few more dances. The dancing by Astaire making obvious that he was the one you could not keep your eyes off of with his moves and not Ms. Rogers. End of story as they go dancing into that good night. See this one mainly for the great dance scene when they go Dancing Cheek to Cheek.