Peter Evans' immensely readable volume uses this classic film to explore questions not only of integration across the Hollywood musical in general, but the ambiguities of (gendered) national identity, romance, subjectivity and the notion of the couple.
Top Hat is the most brilliant of all the 1930s Astaire/Rogers musicals; its wonderful dance routines, catchy Irving Berlin songs, witty dialogue, lavish Art Deco sets, and outstanding performances by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers have ensured its continuing popularity more than seventy years after its first screening in 1935, combining brilliance in performance, screenplay, music, photography and set design.
Peter Evans' immensely readable volume uses this paradigmatic film to explore questions not only of integration across the Hollywood musical in general, but the ambiguities of (gendered) national identity, romance, subjectivity and the notion of the couple. Written in a clear, accessible style, Top Hat probes text and context carefully to appeal to the student and teacher of the musical and of Hollywood film history, as well as the film-loving general reader.
