🎩 Top Hat (1935) Musical Film, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers *Irving Berlin Classic Songs

- 1935. Top Hat is the most well-known film of famous dance partners Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire. The unforgettable songs were written by Irving Berlin. Top Hat was made amid the Great Depression.
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- Top Hat is an American musical screwball comedy film in which Fred Astaire plays an American tap dancer named Jerry Travers, who comes to London to star in a show produced by Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton). He meets and attempts to impress Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) to win her affection. The film was directed by Mark Sandrich, and was written by Allan Scott and Dwight Taylor, with songs by Irving Berlin.

"Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" & "Cheek to Cheek" have become American song classics.

Astaire & Rogers made 9 films together at RKO Pictures, incl.: The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), & Carefree (1938). Top Hat was the most successful picture of Astaire & Rogers' partnership. It was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in its 2nd year, 1990, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Hat
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- 'Top Hat' scene, 'Cheek to Cheek.' 💕
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*NPR: Fred, Ginger Cheered Us Up in the Depression. Might They Do It Again? *Clips. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/08/825696927/fred-and-ginger-cheered-us-up-during-the-depression-might-they-do-it-again
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- IRVING BERLIN (b. Israel Beilin, May 11, 1888 – Sept. 22, 1989) was an American composer & lyricist. He lived to age 101. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Berlin received numerous honors including an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, & Tony Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Gerald R. Ford in 1977.

Born in Imperial Russia, Berlin arrived in the US at the age of 5. He published his 1st song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and became known as the composer of numerous international hits, starting with 1911's "Alexander's Ragtime Band". He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway.

For much of his career, Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other than F-sharp. He was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple & direct, with his stated aim being to "reach the heart of the average American," whom he saw as the "real soul of the country".

Berlin wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which made him famous before he turned 30.

During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 20 original Broadway shows & 15 original Hollywood films, with his songs nominated 8 times for Academy Awards. Many works became popular themes and anthems, including "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Blue Skies", "Easter Parade", "Puttin' on the Ritz", "Cheek to Cheek", "White Christmas", "Happy Holiday", "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)", and "There's No Business Like Show Business". His Broadway musical This Is the Army (1942) was adapted into the 1943 film of the same name. Composer Douglas Moore sets Berlin apart from all other contemporary songwriters, and includes him instead with Stephen Foster, Walt Whitman, and Carl Sandburg, as a "great American minstrel"—someone who has "caught and immortalized in his songs what we say, what we think about, and what we believe."...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Berlin