Last year for Romancefest I watched the Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers movie SWING TIME, and this year it's TOP HAT. I'm glad I go out of my way to do stuff like this because I feel like left to my own devices, I would have never watched these movies, and they're great.TOP HAT's plot hinges on a case of mistaken identity, but that doesn't really matter because the whole thing is just an excuse to get in a few good song and dance scenes with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Astaire plays a stage star who falls for his downstairs neighbor, a model played by Rogers, after he keeps her up all night tap dancing. Rogers falls for Astaire in return after a romantic dance in a gazebo during a rain storm. Everything seems to be going well until Rogers mistakes Astaire for the husband of her best friend (Helen Broderick). Her best friend's actual husband happens to be the producer of the show Astaire is in (Horace Hardwick). All four of them travel to Italy, along with a fussy Italian fashion designer (Erik Rhodes) and a bumbling manservant (Eric Blore), and the series of misunderstandings gets more and more complicated, and funny.
The nice thing about movies like this is you feel like everyone involved was having fun making them. This may or may not be the case -- after all, staging complex dance numbers in one long take can't be easy. Still, Astaire and Rogers are as adept at light hearted comedy as they are at dancing, and their supporting cast is also great.
The most famous sequence is in the middle of the film, as Astaire sings "Cheek to Cheek" and dances with Rogers on a huge set that's supposed to represent the streets and canals of Venice, Italy. It's about as close as you can get to cinematic perfection.
The only problem with the movie might be that this central scene is so great that it almost stops the show in its tracks. After this scene, most of the movie just involves sorting out the plot contrivances and then there's one last big number. Problem is, the big number isn't as awesome as "Cheek to Cheek" and we, as an audience, don't really care how all these plot issues get sorted out. I've had similar issues with other dance movies where the really, really big number that serves as the climax of the film is actually weaker than other numbers that came before it.
Still, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome as badly as some, and Astaire and Rogers are so likable it hardly matters.
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