Top Hat Details

This is the quintessential Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie; Swing Time may be more sophisticated, but there's no question that this fabulous production was more popular — an instant classic, and rightly so. The mistaken identity plot actually works and the casting is simply flawless. Astaire consolidates his image once and for all with the title number Top Hat, White Tie and Tails and the Irving Berlin score is a constant delight. Also terrific are Cheek to Cheek, Isn't This a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain)? and the fabulous Piccolino finale. Good-natured, warm-hearted and very witty (especially the hansom-cab scene), this is a movie to treasure for its sumptuous Art Deco design and the pairing of its principal players.

Marvellous Astaire-Rogers musical, with a more or less realistic London supplanted by a totally artificial Venice, and show-stopping numbers in a style which is no more, separated by amusing plot complications lightly handled by a team of deft farceurs