# 5: "Top Hat" and "Swing Time" (Tie)

"Of all the places the movies have created, one of the most magical and enduring is the universe of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers." (excerpt from Roger Ebert's Great Movies review of "Swing Time".)

"Heaven, I'm in Heaven..." (From the song "Cheek to Cheek" by Irving Berlin)

The two above quotes pretty much sum up my feelings about the films I chose in my number five position for the best movies of the 1930s. "Top Hat" and "Swing Time" are the two superior films from the greatest song and dance duo in film history. I was going back and forth between the two, until I finally realized I had to declare a tie, since there are things I admire in both films, but the feeling I have for them remain the same.

When I watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance, I am transported to a different place, I'm elated with such joy and exuberance, I can only imagine what that initial audience felt in the 1930s going to these movies. Remember back then, people were in the midst of a depression, movies like these were designed as an escape. Astaire would always be in a tuxedo and Rogers would always be in some glamorous dress.

Both "Top Hat" (1935) and "Swing Time" (1936) follow a similar format, and end in very same ways, that is what the audiences wanted, but their films were never about plot, they were about music, dance, and humour. The dance between Astaire and Rogers was the story line, it was a wordless romance. There would never be a romantic kiss shown between the two until their eighth film "Carefree", their emotions were portrayed through their movement, after all every romance is like a some sort of a dance anyway.

For it's part, "Top Hat" represents the team at their most glamorous and refined, while "Swing Time" is the more witty and heartfelt. In "Top Hat" we are treated with the famous dance numbers "Isn't it a Lovely Day?" and "Cheek to Cheek", the latter perhaps the most well known of all the team's works. "Swing Time" we are treated with "Never Gonna Dance", which is their saddest and most poignant number, along with "Pick yourself up", which may be their lightest and humorous number.

"Top Hat" concerns a case of mistaken identity, which is one of those plots that could be concluded if someone just mentions that little piece of information that is missing. We don't seem to mind so much, since the performers always have something to do, whether it's supporting players Edward Everett Horton or Eric Blore getting into comic situations, or it's our two stars doing a number, we are always entertained.



"Swing Time" has Astaire playing a lower class hoofer/gambler (although they do manage to keep him in a tuxedo for the first third of the film), and Rogers is a lower class dance instructor. The two meet, and their is an almost instant rapport (Rogers has to dislike him at the beginning).

Each film is a fantasy picture, like all good musicals are really. In the second part of "Top Hat", we are transported to an embellished Italian resort that takes its cue from Hollywood movie making. In "Swing Time" we are taken into one building with at least 36 floor, and at least two extravagant nightclubs. We don't take these world as realism, but it is the world of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and no two other people could fit better in this world.

Fred Astaire is the epitome of 30s class, even today he is known for wearing the top hat, so much so that in his movie "The Bandwagon", the film opens with a shot of a top hat worn by Astaire's character, a former movie song and dance man from the 30s. No other movie star other than perhaps Chaplin could be recognized by just a piece of clothing. Astaire would also choreograph the numbers of all the Astaire/Rogers films along with his partner Hermes Pan.

Ginger Rogers is probably the most underrated of the duo, but that is probably due to the fact that she became more of a dramatic actress in her later years and left the dancing shoes behind, but to her credit Astaire would never have another partner that shared their chemistry.

What made Astaire and Rogers so memorable was that they were a team, as I was watching these films, I would switch back and forth. In Astaire's later musicals, it didn't matter who he was dancing with, I mostly saw him. Ginger was his equal, she demanded as much attention.

When I watch them together in my personal favorite number of theirs "Cheek to Cheek", I am no longer watching a film, I become a part of a world, and that is a world I will enjoy to go back to again and again.

"Top Hat" and "Swing Time" represent the epitome of 1930s escapism, perhaps the ultimate film escapism experience, and perhaps the closest the screen has come to in achieving heaven, thanks Fred and Ginger.