Astaire and Rogers made nine films together at RKO Pictures, including: The Gay Divorcee (1934), Roberta (1935), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), and Carefree (1938).

[6] Top Hat was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in its second year, 1990, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

A further four minutes were cut[9] before its premiere at the Radio City Music Hall, where it broke all records, went on to gross $3 million on its initial release, and became RKO's most profitable film of the 1930s.

Astaire reacted negatively to the first drafts, complaining that "it is patterned too closely after The Gay Divorcee", and "I am cast as ... a sort of objectionable young man without charm or sympathy or humour".

'"[5] These parts were subsequently orchestrated by a team comprising Edward Powell, Maurice de Packh, Gene Rose, Eddie Sharp, and Arthur Knowlton who worked under the overall supervision of Max Steiner.

[15] In an Astaire-Rogers picture, the Big White Set—as these Art Deco-inspired creations were known—took up the largest share of the film's production costs, and Top Hat was no exception.

This fantasy representation[16] of the Lido of Venice was on three levels comprising dance floors, restaurants and terraces, all decorated in candy-cane colors, with the canal waters dyed black.

routine: "shows Astaire dressed in the style he would make famous: soft-shouldered tweed sports jacket, button-down shirt, bold striped tie, easy-cut gray flannels, silk paisley pocket square, and suede shoes.

Astaire introduced a new style of dress that broke step with the spats, celluloid collars, and homburgs worn by aristocratic European-molded father-figure heroes.

In the "Opening Sequence", after the RKO logo appears, Astaire, shown only from the waist down, dances onto a polished stage floor, backed by a male chorus sporting canes.

Astaire sings it through twice[27] and during the last phrase leaps into a ballet jump, accompanied by leg beats, and launches into a short solo dance that builds in intensity and volume progressing from tap shuffles sur place, via traveling patterns, to rapid-fire heel jabs finishing with a carefree tour of the suite during which he beats on the furniture with his hands.

On his return to the center of the room, where he noisily concentrates his tap barrage, the camera cranes down to discover Rogers in bed, awake and irritated.

As Horton leaves to investigate, Astaire continues to hammer his way around the suite, during which he feigns horror at seeing his image in a mirror—a reference to his belief that the camera was never kind to his face.

[30] In "Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain)", while Rogers is out riding, a thunderstorm breaks[31] and she takes shelter in a bandstand.

[4] The dance is one of flirtation and, according to Mueller, deploys two choreographic devices common to the classical minuet: sequential imitation (one dancer performs a step and the other responds) and touching.

Until the last thirty seconds of this two and a half minute dance the pair appear to pull back from touching, then with a crook of her elbow Rogers invites Astaire in.

[4] For "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails", probably Astaire's most celebrated[33] tap solo, the idea for the title song came from Astaire who described to Berlin a routine he had created for the 1930 Ziegfeld Broadway flop Smiles called "Say, Young Man of Manhattan," in which he gunned down a chorus of men—which included a young Bob Hope and Larry Adler[10]—with his cane.

"[35] Astaire's remarkable ability to change the tempo within a single dance phrase is extensively featured throughout this routine and taken to extremes—as when he explodes into activity from a pose of complete quiet and vice versa.

They make way for Astaire who strides confidently to the front of the stage and delivers the song, which features the famous line: "I'm stepping out, my dear, to breathe an atmosphere that simply reeks with class," trading the occasional tap barrage with the chorus as he sings.

As the camera retreats the lights dim and, in the misterioso passage which follows, Astaire mimes a series of stances, ranging from overt friendliness, wariness, surprise to watchful readiness and jaunty confidence.

The pair spin and lean, dodging back and forth past each other before moving into a standard ballroom position where the first hints of the supported backbend are introduced.

The music now transitions to a quiet recapitulation of the main melody during which the pair engage in a muted and tender partnering, and here the second passage involving sequential imitation appears.

Dining together during carnival night in Venice, and to help assuage her guilt, Astaire declares: "Let's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we have to face him," which serves as the cue for the music of "The Piccolino", the film's big production number.

A gondola parade is followed by the entry of a dancing chorus who perform a series of ballroom poses and rippling-pattern routines choreographed by Hermes Pan.

Berlin, who lavished a great deal of effort on the song[42] designed it as a pastiche of "The Carioca" from Flying Down to Rio (1933) and "The Continental" from The Gay Divorcee (1934),[43] and the lyric communicates its fake origin: "It was written by a Latin/A gondolier who sat in/his home out in Brooklyn/and gazed at the stars.

The camera then switches to Rogers and Astaire who bound down to the stage to perform a two-minute dance—all shot in one take—with the Astaire-Pan choreography separately referencing the basic melody and the Latin vamp in the accompaniment.

[4] "The Piccolino (reprise)": After the various parties confront each other in the bridal suite, with Rogers' "marriage" to Rhodes revealed as performed by a fake clergyman, the scene is set for Astaire and Rogers to dance into the sunset, which they duly do, in this fragment of a much longer duet—the original was cut after the July 1935 previews—but not before they parade across the Venetian set and reprise the Piccolino step.

The New York Times praised the film's musical numbers, but criticized the storyline, describing it as "a little on the thin side," but also stating that "it is sprightly enough to plug those inevitable gaps between the shimmeringly gay dances.

The website's critical consensus reads, "A glamorous and enthralling depression-era diversion, Top Hat is nearly flawless, with acrobatics by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that make the hardest physical stunts seem light as air.

[55] In 1990, Top Hat was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".