50 new things in 2023, part 11/50
Mar. 22nd, 2023 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitThis week's new-to-me thing was Top Hat, the 1935 musical starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with support from Edward Everett Horton and Helen Broderick.
It's a great movie for the first half hour or so, but then it falters as the unbearable mistaken-identity plot overshadows everything, including (sadly) the dancing. It's got a lot of individually funny moments, though, as well as a gleeful let's-annoy-the-censors attitude that means a ton of queer coding and queer jokes. On the other side, some ethnic stereotyping and a big dose of "If a woman doesn't like you, keep bothering her and eventually she will."
Still, fun overall, and that first half hour is magic. I adore the first two-and-a-half dance sequences: there's Astaire's energetic hotel-room tap dance (with Rogers as the annoyed downstairs neighbor trying to sleep) and its soft-shoe coda, and for me the outstanding sequence, the gazebo dance where Rogers, in a riding coat and jodhpurs, mirrors Astaire right down to his masculine mannerisms. Obviously I have particular reasons for being entertained by this, but I still think it's great.
It's a great movie for the first half hour or so, but then it falters as the unbearable mistaken-identity plot overshadows everything, including (sadly) the dancing. It's got a lot of individually funny moments, though, as well as a gleeful let's-annoy-the-censors attitude that means a ton of queer coding and queer jokes. On the other side, some ethnic stereotyping and a big dose of "If a woman doesn't like you, keep bothering her and eventually she will."
Still, fun overall, and that first half hour is magic. I adore the first two-and-a-half dance sequences: there's Astaire's energetic hotel-room tap dance (with Rogers as the annoyed downstairs neighbor trying to sleep) and its soft-shoe coda, and for me the outstanding sequence, the gazebo dance where Rogers, in a riding coat and jodhpurs, mirrors Astaire right down to his masculine mannerisms. Obviously I have particular reasons for being entertained by this, but I still think it's great.
