Top Hat (1935)

 These notes are for movie night, March 1, 2013.

Top Hat is the 4^th film with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In total, they made 10 films. Top Hat is probably the best known of these films. As the lyrics to the title song indicate, this is a film that simply "reeks with class," in more than one sense of that word. ‘Class’ indicates that the people who populate this film are not only classy, they are also of the upper classes, wealthy and artsy. They have servants. ‘Class’ also refers to style. These people have style as their clothes and their surroundings indicate.  In other words, this is a film about the well-to-do and the sophisticated. It takes its place alongside a long tradition of comedy that goes back at least to the society plays in the Restoration and 18^th Century, plays by the likes of Congreve, Sheridan, and others. Like those long-ago comedies, the plot of Top Hat is baroque; it is convoluted, turning on misunderstandings. These misunderstandings have to do with relations between the sexes, and the plot turns on sexual dalliance and suggestions of transgression. It has its naughty side. This film is playful in its dealings with husbands and wives and those who deviate from the norms of society. One example is Erik Rhodes as Alberto Beddini. Beddini is clearly a gay man. His “marriage” to Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) amounts to an act of chivalry, not an act of love.

Comedy is a social mode. It begins with a breakdown in a community and ends with a restoration of order in the community. The restoration of order often takes the form of a marriage or a dance. In dance, everything is executed with skill, grace, and timing. Dance communicates order. So too does marriage. After a plot that has played with marriage breakdown (divorce and infidelity), the action rounds to a marriage that signals good breeding and sound morality. Society once again assumes its acceptable form. Beginning and ending with feet, the film is about dance and soulful. The feet keep us grounded, fleet, fast, and flourishing.

The combining of drawing room comedy with show business people is also noteworthy. This is America and in America show business is not necessarily a dubious profession. These show people are also society people. They inhabit a fantasy world that gathers America and Italy together. Venice becomes a fantasy space where class comes together. People who work in the entertainment business can represent working people, yet they are also members of an elite group. The fantasy is that just plain folk can be rich, elegant, sophisticated, and successful.

The fantasy resonates because of the film’s location smack in the middle of the Great Depression. This is a film to lift the spirits. It presents a wish fulfillment world in which love triumphs. In other words, this is the world we might dream about, but never experience in reality. As a dream, the film takes the viewer out of reality for the 100 or so minutes of its running time. For this time, make believe wins the day.

The clothes and make-up and hairstyles, as well as the sets communicate this make believe. No one has hair as smooth and perfectly set as Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. No man has lips as smoothly drawn with lipstick as Fred Astaire. No one wears clothes like Ginger Rogers. The people are live versions of the Art Deco sets. Art Deco exhibits smooth, uncluttered, soft and rounded and long lines. The sinuous lines of dancers are examples of Art Deco. Some of Fred Astaire’s poses during his dances exhibit the Art Deco lines, as do his top hat and tails that accentuate the long lean line and along with the lighting sometimes present a silhouette effect. The Art Deco geometric shapes and lavish decoration have something of a futuristic look, accentuating the unreality of the action. No gondola in the actual Venice looks exactly like the gondolas we see in Top Hat. Art Deco is a style of art that communicates elegance, luxury, and exuberance. It is clean and clear. It is an expression of freshness; it looks forward to a utopian future. This may explain its rise during the Depression years. Art Deco counters the brute facts of reality with a dream of better times.