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Movies / On DVD / Top Hat
Top Hat

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Top Hat (1935)

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Reviews Counted:36

Fresh:36

Rotten:0

Average Rating:8.7/10

Consensus: A glamorous and enthralling Depression-era diversion, Top Hat is nearly flawless, with acrobatics by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that make the hardest physical stunts seem light as air.

Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins

Genre: Musical & Performing Arts

Synopsis: A musical comedy full of high style, romance, mistaken identity... and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing and singing 11 of Irving Berlin's best songs. When Jerry Travers meets lovely Dale... A musical comedy full of high style, romance, mistaken identity... and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing and singing 11 of Irving Berlin's best songs. When Jerry Travers meets lovely Dale Tremont, it's love at first sight for him. Unfortunately, Dale's affections chill when she mistakenly believes he's her best friend's new husband. Now she's engaged to someone else... Will she find out Jerry's real identity before she goes ahead and makes a big mistake? [More]

Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick

Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Erik Rhodes, Lucille Ball, Leonard Mudie

Director: Mark Sandrich

Director: Mark Sandrich
Producer: Pandro S. Berman
Screenwriter: Dwight Taylor, Allan Scott
Composer: Max Steiner

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Aug 16, 2005

[DVD Details]
 
 
  • Perhaps the best remembered of the 10 Astaire/Rogers musicals, Top Hat has it all: Art Deco elegance, a wonderfully addled storyline, loopy support from skilled farceurs and the incomparable chemistry of the two leads cheek-to-cheeking to Irving Berlin's finest film score.
  • It's a wake-up call for romance when Fred's exuberant No Strings dance in his hotel suite disturbs the sleeping beauty (Ginger) in the room below. They meet cute, Fred decides he'd like a few strings (preferably a tied knot) after all and love beckons until Ginger mistakenly gets the idea that Fred is a married playboy. But mistakes can be wonderfully, wackily resolved. Among the highlights: Fred mows down the chorus line in his signature Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, the shimmeringly dreamy Isn't It a Lovely Day (to Be Caught in the Rain)? and the rhapsodically tender Cheek to Cheek. Nominated for 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Top Hat is top-drawer entertainment magic.
  • Source: Warner Home Video
  •  
     
     
     

    Reviews for Top Hat

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    Reviews
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    tomato

    Arguably the classiest and funniest of the RKO Astaire-Rogers musicals.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Apr., 24 2009 05:40 PM

    Channel 4 Film

    tomato
    5/5

    If you want only one Astaire-Rogers musical, Top Hat is obligatory.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Apr., 24 2009 05:39 PM

    Empire Magazine

    tomato

    Finally, thanks more to Fred Astaire than any other single influence, the character of musicomedy in the cinema has now completely changed.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Apr., 24 2009 05:37 PM

    TIME Magazine

    tomato
    A

    Emanuel Levy

    The fourth pairing of Astaire-Rogers is one of their best and RKO top grosser of the year.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 21 2008 11:03 AM

    EmanuelLevy.Com

    tomato

    Variety Staff

    This one can't miss and the reasons are three -- Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin's 11 songs and sufficient comedy between numbers to hold the film together.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jan., 11 2008 02:05 PM

    Variety

    tomato

    Don Druker

    This 1935 musical finds Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at the top of their form.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jan., 11 2008 12:58 PM

    Chicago Reader

    tomato
    4/5

    S. James Wegg

    No review available.

    comment Comment | Feb., 06 2007 04:15 AM

    JWR

    tomato
    4/4

    Derek Smith

    Top Hat does not glorify wealth or upper class status - if anything it continually pokes fun at it.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jun., 24 2006 03:39 AM

    Cinematic Reflections

    tomato

    Tom Milne

    The third Astaire-Rogers movie and one of the best.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 09 2006 03:16 AM

    Time Out

    tomato
    4/4

    Roger Ebert

    Because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jan., 20 2006 03:15 AM

    Chicago Sun-Times

    tomato

    Douglas Pratt

    The plot is involving, especially as it builds to its seemingly impossible-to-solve finale.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 07 2005 03:15 AM

    Hollywood Reporter

    tomato
    7/10

    John J. Puccio

    ...even after seventy years, the same elements delight us all over again. Good songs, good dancing, and good stars never go out of style.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 03 2005 02:45 PM

    DVDTown.com

    tomato
    4/4

    Dan Callahan

    Every musical number works, and the mistaken identity plot is pleasant enough, even if there's too much emphatic dithering from the supporting players towards the end.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 01 2005 09:39 AM

    Slant Magazine

    tomato
    4/5

    Joe Williams

    No review available.

    comment Comment | Jul., 07 2005 04:49 PM

    St. Louis Post-Dispatch

    tomato
    5/5

    Steve Crum

    One of the best of the Astaire-Rogers best.

    comment Comment | Dec., 28 2004 07:31 PM

    Kansas City Kansan

    tomato
    5/5

    Eric Lurio

    Fred and Ginger's best.

    comment Comment | Dec., 21 2004 07:40 AM

    Greenwich Village Gazette

    tomato
    5/5

    Nell Minow

    Heaven.

    comment Comment | Sep., 17 2004 08:03 PM

    Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

    tomato
    5/5

    Daniel M. Kimmel

    No review available.

    comment Comment | Jul., 28 2004 12:18 PM

    Worcester Telegram & Gazette

    tomato
    5/5

    Rob Blackwelder

    No review available.

    comment Comment | Jun., 11 2004 08:49 PM

    SPLICEDWire

    tomato
    A

    Steven D. Greydanus

    The quintessential Fred-and-Ginger vehicle… typically escapist Depression-era fare… [but] whenever Fred and Ginger are in motion, the magic is timeless.

    Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 26 2003 07:54 AM

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