Rogers and Astaire dancing "Cheek to Cheek"
“When Hollywood revived musical films three years ago, dancing was monopolized by director Busby Berkeley,” Newsweek magazine noted in its 1935 review of Top Hat. “Thanks more to Fred Astaire than any other single influence, the character of musicomedy in the cinema has now completely changed.” And changed for the better in most estimates. “The dancing on the screen reaches such perfection as is attainable,” critic Roger Ebert wrote about Astaire and partner Ginger Rogers. “To watch them is to see hard work elevated to effortless joy.” Top Hat not only became the most successful Astaire and Rogers film but also the team’s most iconic.
Director Mark Sandrich started work on the production in December 1934, as Astaire began five weeks of rehearsal on a closed set — just himself, choreographer Hermes Pan, and pianist Hal Borne, with Rogers called when she was needed. As Borne played, Astaire and Pan would improvise steps until they found a shape that satisfied Astaire.
In January, screenwriter Dwight Taylor sent composer Irving Berlin a rough outline, then a first draft a month later. Astaire complained about the script’s thin plot, its similarity to his previous film The Gay Divorcee, and its unsympathetic view of his character. Sandrich hired Allan Scott to rework the script, and the two screenwriters continued to submit separate versions to the director, who passed them on with notes to Berlin.
In April, a final draft was compiled from Taylor and Scott’s versions and filming began, with a budget between $500,000 and $750,000. Scott and Sandrich continued to rewrite, and a final script wasn’t done until May. Though based on the 1933 German film Scandal in Budapest written by Karl Noti (itself based on the 1930 Hungarian stage comedy A Girl Who Dares by Sándor Faragó and Aladár László), RKO didn’t credit the source material since so little ended up in the final film.
The dances were usually shot in single takes, framed head-to-foot, in one of three camera angles: head-on, medium right angle, and medium left angle. No reaction shots. For “Cheek to Cheek,” Rogers was determined to wear a dress trimmed with ostrich feathers. In his autobiography, Astaire described the difficulties they encountered with those feathers. “When we did the first movement of the dance, feathers started to fly as if a chicken had been attacked by a coyote,” he wrote. “Hermes Pan and I sang a little parody on ‘Cheek to Cheek’ to Ginger. … ‘Feathers, I hate feathers, and I hate them so that I can hardly speak, and I never find the happiness I seek with those chicken feathers dancing cheek to cheek.’” Astaire later parodied the experience in Easter Parade (1948).
Shooting ended in June, and public previews began in July. A Santa Barbara audience gave the picture a cool reception, finding that the ending was too long, so about 15 minutes were trimmed from the carnival sequence and gondola parade.
The film premiered in New York at Radio City Music Hall on August 29, 1935, setting a house record of $134,800 in its first week. Overall, the film earned more than $3 million, RKO’s most profitable production of the decade, and by September, three songs (“Cheek to Cheek,” “Top Hat,” “Isn’t This a Lovely Day”) were in the Top 5 on Your Hit Parade. Berlin gave credit to Astaire as “a real inspiration for a writer. I’d never have written Top Hat without him. He makes you feel so secure.”
Reviews were mainly positive. The New York Times praised the musical numbers, while noting, “If the comedy itself is a little on the thin side, it is sprightly enough to plug those inevitable gaps between the shimmeringly gay dances.” Variety was more critical: “It’s the same lineup of players as was in The Gay Divorcée. Besides which the situations in the two scripts parallel each other closely.” Despite rewrites, critics still found Fred & Ginger’s new film too similar to their last.
Film Daily included the movie in its top 10 list of 1935, and Top Hat received Oscar nominations for picture, art direction, original song (“Cheek to Cheek”), and dance direction (“Piccolino” and “Top Hat”). It lost in all four categories.
In 1990, the film was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry, and in 2006, it ranked #15 on AFI’s list of best movie musicals. A stage adaptation opened on London’s West End in 2012, winning three Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical.
You can listen to the soundtrack on Pandora (paired with Swing Time), and rent or buy Top Hat on Amazon Prime. For more about the making of the film, look for the Wiley-Blackwell studies series on Top Hat (2010) by Peter William Evans.
NEXT, try another Fred & Ginger classic: Swing Time (1936), with songs by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, including the Oscar-winning “The Way You Look Tonight.” Many consider this film their best dancing, if not their best story. You can listen to the soundtrack on Pandora (paired with Top Hat) and stream the film or purchase the DVD through Amazon Prime.
THEN, explore Disney’s second animated musical: Pinocchio (1940), with songs by studio writers Leigh Harline and Ned Washington, including the Oscar-winning “When You Wish upon a Star,” which has become the company’s theme song. The film is available in various video formats from Disney and streaming on Disney+.