It never really mattered what loopy plot was devised to get Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers together in their musicals – once they started dancing in each other’s arms, all contrivances fall to the wayside and you clearly see they were made for each other. Top Hat relies on especially flimsy contrivances, already recycling from their previous pairings in The Gay Divorcee and Flying Down to Rio. As soon as Astaire’s Jerry Travers, an American showman performing in London, sees Rogers’ Dale Tremont, he begins an aggressive courtship – including loudly tap dancing in the hotel room above hers – that could be considered stalking by choreography. Yet the first time she gives in, to Irving Berlin’s “Isn’t This a Lovely Day,” their routines make the plot mechanics melt away. The choreography to this number may be the most complicated in the whole movie, but as usual the couple makes it look like a breeze. Astaire, especially, has an inherent looseness – he makes regimented discipline seem like the most carefree thing in the world. Meanwhile, Rogers’ movements have something even Astaire at his loosest can’t convey – spontaneity – and she brings the same lively spark to the traditional narrative scenes (where it is she who has the upper hand). With familiar faces Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes and Eric Blore having fun keeping the mistaken-identity plot in play while prancing about the fantastically faux Venetian set.
