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- For the item of clothing, see top hat. For the fictional character, see Stack No. 4 - Top Hat.
Top Hat is a 1935 musical comedy romance film in which Fred Astaire plays an American dancer named Jerry Travers, who comes to London to star in a show produced by Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). He meets and attempts to impress Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) to win her affection. The film also features Eric Blore as Hardwick's valet Bates, Erik Rhodes as Alberto Beddini, a fashion designer and rival for Dale's affections, and Helen Broderick as Hardwick's long-suffering wife Madge.
The film was written by Karl Noti, Allan Scott, and Dwight Taylor, from the play by Alexander Faragó and Aladar Laszlo. It was directed by Mark Sandrich. The songs are by Irving Berlin. Top Hat, White Tie and Tails and Cheek to Cheek have become American song classics.
It has been nostalgically referenced — particularly its "Cheek to Cheek" segment — in many films, including The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and The Green Mile (1999).
Top Hat was the most successful picture of Astaire and Rogers' partnership (and Astaire's second most successful picture after Easter Parade), achieving second place in worldwide box-office receipts for 1935, and while some dance critics maintain that Swing Time contained a finer set of dances, Top Hat remains, to this day, the partnership's best-known work.
Awards
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as Art Direction (Carroll Clark and Van Nest Polglase), Original Song (Irving Berlin for "Cheek to Cheek"), and Dance Direction (Hermes Pan for "Piccolino" and "Top Hat").
Deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Top Hat, White Tie and Tails
The title song is sung by Fred Astaire's character Jerry Travers onstage, as part of his musical revue being perfomed in London, along with chorus dancers dressed in the epynomous attire. He sings the song, performs a tap dance routine, and then proceeds to "shoot" the chorus dancers, using his cane as a "machine gun" and imitating gunfire noises with his tap shoes. This sequence was parodied in a scene in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.
Songs
- "No Strings"
- "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails"
- "Isn't It A Lovely Day?"
- "The Piccolino"
- "Cheek to Cheek"
External Link
1935 films | Musical films | Best Picture Academy Award nominees | United States National Film Registry | Best Song Academy Award nominees | Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
"Top Hat"