Plot? What plot? Who needs a plot when you've got gorgeous gowns, impeccable tuxedoes, Fred and Ginger's dancing, remarkably stylish sets, and music to set your heart a flutter?

frustrating plot? it's an early screwball comedy. and when you go into a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film, it's more about their dancing anyway. anything more than that is a bonus

Top Hat is basically what would happen if you put Astaire and Rogers' previous film, The Gay Divorcee, into the blender. The plot is a little simpler, but essentially the same kind of extended mistaken identity hijinks, several of the same supporting players, like Erik Rhodes again playing a gay-coded foreigner, and Edward Everett Horton as the nervous sidekick. Those who weren't in The Gay Divorcee appear in the next one over, Swing Time, throwing an air of over-familiarity over the whole thing, depending on the order you saw them in. That said, it's got great songs ("Cheek to Cheek" being the most memorable), great dance numbers (they really are in sync, those two, and the way they get there is a beautiful manifestation of how their instant relationship forms), and amusing comedy bits. Helen Broderick as Horton's wife is quite funny, actually, and was probably my favorite character in the piece. This was a big hit at the time, and it may be THE iconic Astaire and Rogers picture, even if all of them are fairly similar.