Welcome to Fred and Ginger week, where we dive into two of their most beloved movies, Top Hat and Swing Time. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made 10 movies together, setting the standard for dynamic dancing pairs.
They were thrown together in Flying Down to Rio, which was a fine arrangement for Astaire for one film. He had previously been part of a double act with his older sister, and when she married and retired from the industry he was hesitant to be paired up again. After the success of Rio, however, little could be done to deny Fred and Ginger’s on-screen chemistry.
Katharine Hepburn summed it up perfectly when she said, “He gives her class and she gives him sex appeal.” Fred was dynamic and charismatic, and I’m sure it was easy for him to act as though he was enamored with Ginger. Ginger made it look like it was the most fun in the world dancing with Fred, and every time they performed together, it was pure fantasy and Hollywood glamour.
Top Hat is yet another Irving Berlin lead musical, except instead of focusing on holidays it’s about a girl who is trying everything within her power to not get involved with someone else’s open marriage.
Jerry, played by Freddie himself, is a successful dancer that is actively being recruited by his friend Horace to star in his upcoming stage show. Jerry seems generally intrigued by the plan, until he starts to realize his friend Horace has some unignorable personality quirks. First he’s inserted into the middle of a tiff between Horace and his valet Bates over their differing opinion on tie styles. Next, he’s told that Horace’s wife, Madge, is interested in hooking Jerry up with her painfully single friend Dale. In fact, after the show opening, the plan is for the two of them to travel to Italy and rendezvous with Madge and meet this attractive young lady. Jerry is wholly uninterested in the prospect of snagging a permanent dame as living unencumbered has so far suited him just fine. Even though it’s the middle of the night, he demonstrates to Horace how truly footloose and fancy free he really is.
This number is so flippin’ glorious – Fred’s enthusiasm is infectious and hilarious.
Jerry changes his tune really quickly when the attractive young woman directly below Horace’s hotel room storms upstairs to let him know she’s not super pleased he’s literally tap dancing on her ceiling while she’s trying to sleep. Fred lays down the moves, but she’s tired and cranky and easily rebuffs his advances before heading back downstairs. In an attempt to get on her good side, he plays the sandman and soft shoe ASMRs them both to sleep.
The next few days Jerry fills his crush’s room with flowers and charges it to his benefactor, Horace. We learn that this young woman is Dale, Madge’s friend she’s trying to set Jerry up with, but neither Jerry or Dale realize this. Unfortunately, Dale is already kept woman. Mr. Beddini, a fashion designer, has been paying for her room and board in exchange for her “modelling some clothes” for him. Oblivious to this, Jerry escalates the situation when he stalks Dale to the park. Somehow Dale finds this both annoying and charming, because it’s Fred Astaire and he can woo any woman by crooning an Irving Berlin tune. The have a little tête-à-tête in the rain, and Dale falls for this man hard.
This is so much fun I can’t handle ittttttt.
After returning from her play date, Dale is confronted by Mr. Beddini, as he’s upset she no longer wants to travel to Italy to be set up with some rando. Mr. Beddini was relying on the trip to Italy for Dale to “show off his new clothes”, and is immediately jealous that Dale would rather spend time in New York with her new friend Jerry. Madge informs Dale that her husband Horace would be looking her up regardless if Dale decides to join them or not, and that Mr. Beddini could accompany her to Italy if that helps change her mind about the trip.
Through a series of misunderstandings communicated by the hotel desk clerk, Dale comes to believe that Jerry is her friend Madge’s husband Horace. She confronts Jerry by slapping the shit out of him, offended she ever batted her thin-eyebrowed eyes at his dumb face. To Mr. Beddini’s relief, Dale decides to travel to Italy in an effort to purge Jerry from her brain, and presumably conceal the fact her friend’s “husband” was hitting on her.
Surprisingly, the hotel decides to investigate “the slapping incident”, and when they approach Horace, who Dale thinks was hitting on her, he decides not to rat out Jerry because he doesn’t want to jeopardize the stage show he’s invested a lot of money in. He instead throws his valet Bates under the bus and tells the staff Bates was the one who was slapped by Dale. After the staff leave, Horace asks Bates to trail Dale to make sure she’s not trying to take advantage of Jerry for his wealth or connections, and the two of them decide not to travel to Italy.
During the opening night of the show, Jerry and Horace discover that Dale is the woman Madge was intending to introduce to Jerry. Jerry also changes his mind about the Italy trip and pressures Horace to charter a plane so he can intercept Dale. After Jerry murders his fellow backup dancers, the entire cast heads to the best Italy the “It’s A Small World” construction crew could erect on a sound stage.
Honestly, this plot gets unbelievably complicated and convoluted, as this mistaken identity bit gets dragged out for like another 20 minutes. Dale keeps trying to tell Madge her husband is a weirdo, and Madge continually blows her off. When Madge finally gets Dale and Jerry to eat dinner with her, Dale is further put-off by the fact her friend keeps insinuating she should sleep with who Dale thinks is Madge’s husband. But try as hard as Dale may, she finds Jerry/Horace harder to resist the more they dance together.
Fun fact: This is the dress that Fred Astaire was making fun of in Easter Parade because it shed like nobody’s business and was a pain in the ass to dance with. Ginger fought Fred and the studio to wear this gorgeous gown, and she won in the end, but not without earning the nickname “Feathers”.
While dancing with her friend’s husband is acceptable, Dale is immediately furious when Jerry/”Horace” proposes to her. In order to remove herself from this weird fucking dynamic between her friend and her “husband”, she decides to accept Mr. Beddini’s impromptu marriage proposal and they immediately get hitched. When Madge is informed of this, she immediately blames her husband Horace for Dale’s poor life decision because it was him that was skeezing her out. Finally, in the last 20 minutes of the movie, the group realizes that Dale thinks Jerry is Horace, and Jerry runs to correct this assumption and rescue her from the Bridal Suite. He tap dances his way back into her life, and a slow speed chase ensues when the two of them flee in a gondola. Dale and Jerry get away thanks to Horace’s valet Bates’ intervention, as he’s been tasked with following Dale and is fully apprised of the situation. While the rest of the party is dead in the water, Jerry and Dale sing, dance and be merry.
Jerry and Dale decide to marry each other, but they need to get Dale divorced from Mr. Beddini first. Turns out, the person who posed as a priest was MVP of this story, Bates, so the marriage was never legal. Dale and Jerry immediately tie the knot and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.
The acting in this movie is great, and several of the line deliveries from the supporting cast had me on the floor. The music is catchy and memorable, and the dance numbers, of course, are out of this world. If the plot wasn’t so fucking tedious, Top Hat would have been one of my favorites.
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