Critic Reviews
93
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
15(94%)
mixed
1(6%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 16 Critic Reviews
100
At a point when many dancers would be gasping for breath, Astaire and Rogers are smiling easily, heedlessly. To watch them is to see hard work elevated to effortless joy: The work of two dancers who know they can do no better than this, and that no one else can do as well.
100
Hands down, this is the best Astaire-Rogers musical ever. Nothing more needs to be said.
100
The fourth pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the first with a screenplay written specifically for them, Top Hat is the quintessential Astaire-Rogers musical, complete with a silly plot, romance, dapper outfits, art deco sets, and plenty of wonderful songs and dance numbers.
100
Top Hat is tops with two of the duo’s most sublime numbers (The Piccolino, Cheek to Cheek), plus Fred’s rat-a-tat solo, a funnier-than-you-remember script (Erik Rhodes’ English-mangling designer exclaiming: ”Never again will I allow women to wear my dresses!”), and the hummable Irving Berlin score.
100
In Top Hat's all-time showstopper, to Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek," light-footed Fred and feathery Ginger dance us right into paradise. [23 Aug 2005, p.C3]
100
If you want only one Astaire-Rogers musical, Top Hat is obligatory for Astaire at his most debonair with Irving Berlin's title number and Cheek to Cheek in this screwball confused identities plot.
100
Every musical number works, and the mistaken-identity plot is pleasant enough, even if there’s too much emphatic dithering from the supporting players toward the end.
100
Top Hat reflects a transatlantic kind of universe, the Brit dimension absorbed into American waspy class, and sweetened with some mannered comedy; this was a Hollywood that loved PG Wodehouse.
90
When Top Hat is letting Mr. Astaire perform his incomparable magic or teaming him with the increasingly dexterous Miss Rogers it is providing the most urbane fun that you will find anywhere on the screen.
90
In one of the best-looking, wittiest, most melodious and stylishly romantic musicals ever made, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance and feud from London to a dazzling art deco Venice. [09 Oct 2011, p.51]
