Top Hat, Mark Sandrich, 1935, 101 min.
Swing Time, George Stevens, 1936, 103 min.
Top Hat
6:30 p.m.
This is quintessential Fred and Ginger – “He gave her style, and she gave him sex,” Katharine Hepburn famously said – and it stands with Swing Time as their very best work. In these films Astaire and his collaborator Hermes Pan perfected their methods for getting choreography onto the screen. Irving Berlin’s score for Top Hat is one of the most famous in movie history, featuring both “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails” and “Cheek to Cheek.”
Swing Time
8:30 p.m.
An undisputed high point of the Astaire-Rogers partnership, Swing Time marks Astaire’s first experiments with trick photography – in the scene in which he dances with his own shadow. The film includes the numbers “A Fine Romance,” “Pick Yourself Up,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” and “Never Gonna Dance.” Music is by Jerome Kern.