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Sick Product of a Sick System

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

American performer Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) is in London to work for lovable producer Horace Hardwick. Jerry starts dancing up a storm in his hotel room annoying Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) in the room below. She goes upstairs to complain. Jerry falls for her immediately while she mistakes him for Horace who is married to her friend Madge. He follows her and the Hardwicks to Venice where she's modeling for Italian designer Alberto Beddini.This has Fred and Ginger at their finest with music from Irving Berlin. It can't miss. "I'm in heaven." The story is a simple comedy of errors and misunderstandings. It's fun enough and good enough. The dance numbers are good. There are big ones but it's still the simple Fred and Ginger dance that is the best. This is a nice example of a good ole song and dance from that era.

. . . turning Hitler's Nuremberg Rallies into an international hit movie (TRIUMPH OF THE WILL), but like the Dodgers' Jackie Robinson, Leni had to first step on the shoulders of Giants to get to where she got. Only, in Leni's case, it was more like she was treading on gnomes, following in the footsteps of America's Tap-Dancing Terrorist Fred Astaire, who was never scarier than in 1935's TOP HAT. Viewers will pick up a threatening vibe from Freddy Kruger's Role Model early on, as he throws a fright into the fragile and half-asleep crowd of octogenarians packed into a Thackeray Reading Room. Next he attacks Ginger Rogers, stomping so hard on the ceiling of her hotel room that falling tiles wake her up at 3 AM; it's lucky that she isn't blinded! Upping the ante of his mayhem, Freddy pantomimes a literal 21-gun salute to close out TOP HAT's title song, "shooting" nearly two dozen chorus boys with his dancing cane between 44:30 and 45:10. He even "guns down" an audience member for an encore. If Today's Cleveland cops run across someone behaving like Freddy in his TOP HAT heyday, their rules of engagement probably will let them leave a thoroughly deceased hoofer on the ground in the park.

Dancer Fred Astaire and model Ginger Rogers meet and immediately fall in love. But when Ginger mistakenly believes Fred is married to her friend, she wants nothing more to do with him. Okay, not the most original plot you'll ever see. Mistaken identity plots were pretty common then (and still show up today). But it's handled well and never feels contrived. This is my favorite Fred & Ginger movie. Both are in top form with wonderful timing and chemistry. Great comedic support from Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Helen Broderick, and a scene-stealing Erik Rhodes ("Never again will I allow women to wear my dresses!"). Songs include the classic "Cheek to Cheek" and the underrated "The Piccolino." The dance numbers are exceptional. Ginger's beautiful, even in that feather dress that Fred Astaire hated so much. Everything works in this one. The comedy, the romance, the songs, the dancing -- it's all perfect.

Frankly, while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had wonderfully chemistry, I don't feel the Astaire/Rogers films were his best movies. Band Wagon, for one, was much better, and in terms of dance partners, Eleanor Powell was much more impressive than Rogers.Still, I watched all the Astaire/Rogers films when I was in college, and I enjoyed them, less for the dancing (I really like Astaire best in his novelty numbers, like dancing with a coat rack or firecrackers) than with the goofy comedy of supporting players like Edward Everett Horton.Top Hat is a very good example of the Astaire Rogers formula. Astaire and Rogers coo and snipe, supporting players are amusingly befuddled, the story is an amusing though remarkably dopey comedy of errors, and there is quite a lot of dancing. The songs by Irving Berlin are some of his best, and the dancing is, of course, excellent, even though I'm really more a fan of Gene Kelly's earthier approach.If you like Astaire/Rogers movies, you'll like this one. If you've never seen one, this is a good place to start. I don't consider it a great movie by any means, but it is consistently entertaining.