Top Hat (1935)

Back in the day, the phrase "he dances like Fred Astaire" was the equivalent of today's "he's got moves like Jagger." Dancing like Fred Astaire evoked effortless, light footwork as a dancer elegantly glided from one position to another or twirled a partner like they were one and the same. That was Fred Astaire. I knew who Fred Astaire was but I had never seen a genuine Fred Astaire dance film. My first recollection of Fred Astaire was as an animated mailman (in Fred's likeness) on the Christmas television special SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN (1970). And my only live action Fred Astaire encounter was an older Fred Astaire in a non-dancing role in the star studded disaster film THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974). I had not witnessed Fred Astaire at the peak of his popularity when he was dancing...well, like Fred Astaire.

But if we're going to talk about Fred Astaire, we have to talk about his dancing partner and co-star Ginger Rogers.  The platinum haired beauty was the other half of the successful dance team of Astaire and Rogers. They made an engaging cinematic couple, able to dance and sing and act (helped by both their vaudeville backgrounds). Astaire and Rogers would make 9 films together for RKO Pictures including FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933), THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934), and George Stevens SWING TIME (1936). Fred Astaire often danced in a top hat, tuxedo and tails so it seems fitting that TOP HAT (1935) directed by Mark Sandrich (who helmed 5 Astaire/Rogers films) and written by Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott, based on a story by Dwight Taylor, should be my first Fred Astaire dance film.

RKO Pictures appears to have had a regular stock company (in front and behind the camera) that worked together in many of these musical/dance comedies of the 30s. Besides Astaire and Rogers, there's Edward Everett Horton as Astaire's goofy buddy,  Eric Blore playing sarcastic waiters and butlers, Erik Rhodes as the snooty, narcissistic foreign foil (usually Italian), and Helen Broderick as the wise cracking girlfriend/confidante to Rogers. Director Mark Sandrich used this group in three films: THE GAY DIVORCEE, TOP HAT, and SHALL WE DANCE (1937). Even George Stevens cast most of these actors for SWING TIME. Screenwriters Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott either wrote or co-wrote many of these films including THE GAY DIVORCEE, TOP HAT, and FOLLOW THE FLEET (1936). And one of the best collaborators with Astaire, Rogers, and Sandrich was composer and lyricist Irving Berlin who's songs provide the entertainment in these lighthearted, whimsical films.

It doesn't take long into watching TOP HAT to grasp the film's unmistakable universal plot: mistaken identity. Fred Astaire plays Jerry Travers, an American entertainer over in Britain to star in his own London show. His wacky producer Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton) picks him up from the stuffy Thackeray Club (of which Hardwick is a member) and takes him back to his hotel. Jerry's so excited for his show that he tap dances and sings "No Strings (I'm Fancy Free)" in Horace's room. His tap dancing wakes up model Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) who's trying to sleep in the room below. While Horace deals with angry hotel managers downstairs, Dale confronts Jerry who's instantly smitten with Dale.

The next day, Dale catches a horse driven hansom cab that Jerry has secretly commandeered. Jerry takes her to her favorite horse stables. Dale goes horse riding but a thunderstorm chases her to cover under a gazebo. Jerry joins her for their first dance duet and the song "Isn't This a Lovely Day (to Be Caught in the Rain."  Jerry returns Dale to the hotel. Her room is crammed with flowers (courtesy of Jerry) and an angry Italian fashion designer Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes) who also is smitten with Dale. The next day, Dale tries to find out Jerry's name. The hotel clerk mistakenly identifies Jerry as Horace.  Dale is shocked. She's friends with Horace's wife Madge Hardwick (Helen Broderick). Madge believes Jerry's cheating on his wife.  When Jerry approaches her in the lobby, Dale slaps him in full public view.

Horace hides Jerry in his hotel suite, afraid of bad publicity.  Horace orders his butler Bates (Eric Blore) to follow Dale. Jerry performs his show on opening night. Afterward, he discovers Dale has flown off to Venice, Italy with Alberto (and Bates hot on their trail). Jerry catches the next flight out to find her, taking Horace with him. In Venice, Dale confides to Madge (who was vacationing there) about Horace's philandering but Madge seems nonchalant about the accusation. It doesn't sound like the Horace she knows (because it's actually Jerry). With Madge's blessing, Jerry dances with Dale to "Cheek to Cheek." Later, Alberto proposes to Dale.  Confused by Madge and Horace's seemingly open marriage, Dale accept Alberto's proposition and they are hastily married. Madge punches Horace when he shows up for dinner (she's more ticked off then she let on to Dale). Jerry referees an apology between Horace and Madge and deduces that Dale thinks Jerry is Horace.

Armed with this new knowledge, Jerry sets about to disrupt Dale and Alberto's wedding night. He bursts into their honeymoon suite, upsetting Alberto. After he's kicked out of the room, Jerry takes the suite above them and tap dances thunderously, interrupting the newlyweds night of passion. Alberto races upstairs with a sword to fight Jerry only to encounter Horace. Jerry sneaks downstairs and takes Dale on a gondola ride to explain that he's not Horace but Jerry. Alberto, Horace, and Madge chase after them on a speedboat only to get lost in the fog. Dale's happy to find out Jerry's not an adulterer but she reveals to Jerry she's now married to Alberto. TOP HAT ends with a surprise twist that will solve Dale's situation and bring Jerry and Dale back together.

TOP HAT is a musical comedy about mistaken identity but it also fits into another genre that was wildly popular in the 1930s -- the screwball comedy.  Directors like Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch were making screwball comedies in the 30s with great actors and outrageous plots but they didn't have one ingredient that TOP HAT has -- a couple like Astaire and Rogers that could sing, dance, and play comedy. TOP HAT has all these elements. Astaire and Rogers have several dance/song numbers together.  The early sequences are excellent and exhibit why they made a fetching pair. The finale "The Piccolino"is a bit of a letdown, more of a group dance number than a showcase for Astaire and Rogers.  Irving Berlin's songs are catchy and light, just like Astaire and Rogers dancing.  And the film has many wonderful gags and humorous moments. Each player has their moment to shine or get a laugh.

Before watching Fred Astaire dance in TOP HAT, the only dancing actor I had really watched was Gene Kelly in films like Vincent Minnelli's AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) and Stanley Donen's SINGING IN THE RAIN (1952).  Whereas Kelly was a compact, athletic dancer, Astaire is tall and elegant. One surprising aspect about Astaire is that he's cast as a ladies man. He's certainly attractive but not in the classic way.  Kelly was better looking but could play modest and shy very well.  Astaire is cocky and confident. I first noticed this about Astaire while watching HOLIDAY INN (1942) with Bing Crosby. I expected Crosby to be the lady killer but it was Astaire who was the cocky one. Astaire and Kelly would make one film together called ZIEGFELD FOLLIES (1945) dancing together in a sequence directed by Vincente Minnelli called The Babbit and the Bromide. They would also dance together in the MGM musical retrospective THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT II (1976).

Ginger Rogers has that 1930s look for actresses from Jean Harlow to Mae West: platinum blonde hair and big eye lashes. Throw in the curls and a mole on her chin to separate Rogers from the rest. Rogers also had versatility. In TOP HAT, her dance duets with Astaire are beautiful but the two have a genuine chemistry whether it's a romantic scene or a comic one. Rogers wasn't just a dancing actor. She went on to act in more films, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress in Sam Woods' KITTY FOYLE (1940) and garnering excellent reviews in Garson Kanin's comedy TOM, DICK, AND HARRY (1941).

TOP HAT is a screwball comedy with lots of music and dancing. Astaire and Rogers costars in TOP HAT provide much of the comedy and worked with many of the great screwball comedy directors before and after.  Edward Everett Horton made a career out of playing the lead character's best friend or acquaintance. In TOP HAT, Horton plays Astaire's nervous producer/friend Horace Hardwick. He's not so much Astaire's wingman as his fixer with mixed results including being mistaken for Jerry by Dale. Horton began in the silent films but made the transition to talkies with his quivering, falsetto voice. Horton had some of the best character names in film: Egbert "Pinky" Fitzgerald in THE GAY DIVORCEE or Homer B. Bitts in HIS NIGHT OUT (1935). Horton would appear in more traditional screwball comedies like Ernst Lubitsch's THE MERRY WIDOW (1934), George Cukor's HOLIDAY (1938), and Frank Capra's ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944).

Horton may have perfected the high strung buddy of the protagonist in screwball comedies but Erik Rhodes (who was born in Oklahoma) found his niche playing European characters with broad accents or dialects. In TOP HAT, Rhodes plays splashy Italian fashion designer Alberto Beddini, who duels with Astaire's Jerry for the hand of Ginger Rogers.  Like Horton, Rhodes would also appear with Astaire and Rogers in THE GAY DIVORCEE as another outrageous Italian character Rodolfo Tonetti. The other Eric in TOP HAT is Eric Blore. Blore perfected the sarcastic servant whether it be a waiter or a butler. In TOP HAT, Blore as Hardwick's man servant Bates steals every scene he's in. Blore would work with the great comedy director Preston Sturges in THE LADY EVE (1941) and later provide the voice for Mr. Toad in Disney's THE WIND AND THE WILLOW (1949). Lastly, Helen Broderick as Hardwick's wife Madge is another delicious comic character. Broderick was wonderful with her deadpan delivery. Broderick would appear with Astaire and Rogers in SWING TIME as well.

Special mention goes to the RKO Art Department (Van Nest Polglase gets the screen credit for TOP HAT) for their beautiful, opulent sets especially the Venice set complete with canals and gondolas and Dale and Alberto's bridal suite. They are huge and minimalist allowing room for dancing or comedic action on a grand scale.  TOP HAT and many of the other Astaire/Rogers films were a diversion for an audience that was just coming out of the Great Depression. The stories transported moviegoers to Rio, London, Venice, and New York. Astaire and Rogers made audiences forget their troubles for an hour and a half, swept up in their graceful, synchronized movements. The rich were portrayed as foolish fops and the servants got all the funny lines. I tip my hat to TOP HAT and its stock company of performers and especially Astaire and Rogers who dazzled audiences for a good decade. Check out TOP HAT or any of the other Astaire/Rogers films for a nice distraction in these unusual times.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

It was the cover of a program that was promoting a German Film Festival at my favorite second run movie theater in Northwest Portland that first caught my attention to AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972). The photograph on the program terrified me. On the cover was a crazy eyed Spanish conquistador with white hair coursing from underneath his helmet, gazing intensely to his right off camera. Later, I would see a larger version of that photo (it might have been the film's movie poster) only the conquistador was clutching a young girl's head in front of him. Her expression wasn't terror but it wasn't happiness either. I had no idea what the film was about or who made it. I had no intention of ever watching it even as I was mesmerized by this one image.

Jump ahead maybe ten or fifteen years and I stumbled across AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD on television of all places.  Not the network channels or a cable channel.  It was on our local Public Broadcasting channel. I turned it on just when a soldier was decapitated. As his severed head lay on the ground, he spoke a final word. I was hooked.  It turned out I had caught the last quarter hour of the film.  I eventually rented it and watched the film in its entirety. AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is an amazing adventure film, shot on location in Peru, written and directed by German director Werner Herzog during his most creative period in the 1970s. It turns out that the young girl held by the conquistador is his daughter in the film. AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD would be a cinematic calling card for Werner Herzog but the film would also catapult a little known German actor named Klaus Kinski (more well known as the father of actress/model Nastassja Kinski) into international fame. Herzog and Kinski would make five films altogether. During those five films, they often wanted to kill each other when they weren't enjoying each other's creative company.

Although a work of fiction, AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD incorporates historical events and real people like Aguirre and Pizarro. Herzog tells his hallucinatory tale through the words of the only supposed account of this lost expedition, a diary kept by the monk Gaspar de Carvajal (Del Negro) who narrates most of the film. It's December 1560 and Spanish explorer Gonzalo Pizarro (Allejandro Repulles) and his Spanish army of conquistadors have trekked over the Andes after obliterating the Incan empire. Pizarro is in search of the legendary city of gold known as El Dorado. As the expedition comes down a steep, twisting Incan trail, they are met by a swollen, raging river.  The jungle is thick. Their cannons become stuck in the mud. Rations are beginning to dwindle. Pizarro orders rafts built. He decides to send a smaller party of forty soldiers accompanied by a few Indian slaves to scout down river for the fabled golden city.

Pizarro puts in charge Don Pedro de Ursua (Ruy Guerra) to lead the survey party. It's not a popular choice. Ursua brings along his mistress Dona Inez de Atienza (Helena Rojo) against Pizarro's wishes. Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) is chosen as second in command. Accompanying Aguirre is his fifteen year old daughter Flores (Cecilia Rivera). The hefty Don Fernando de Guzman (Peter Berling), representing the House of Spain, the priest Gaspar, and Guzman's personal slave Okello (Edward Roland) are also part of the group. The rafts head down the river.  The party encounters some big rapids early on.  One of the rafts becomes stuck in an eddy, unable to push back into the main river. Ursua sets up camp across the river from the helpless soldiers. He sends out a group to try and rescue them against Aguirre's protests. At night, there's an explosion where the stuck raft lays. The next day, the search party reaches the raft.  Every one on board is dead.

Ursua wants to retrieve the bodies to bury but Aguirre knows this is madness. There are hostile Indians hiding on either side of the river. Aguirre quietly orders the raft and bodies blown up by cannon fire. Ursua decides to turn back to rejoin Pizarro. Aguirre has Ursua shot, wounding him and several others. The hefty Guzman is placed in charge but it's really Aguirre and his right hand man Perucho (Daniel Ades) manipulating the soldiers. They convict Ursua of treason but keep him alive. The expedition will continue. The party comes across a deserted Indian village on the bank of the river.  Signs indicate the inhabitants are cannibalistic. Aguirre and the rafts move on. The river slows, providing the unseen Indians opportunity to shoot their poison darts at the boat, picking off the soldiers one at a time. A canoe rows out to the raft from the shore, carrying two members of the Yagua tribe. One of them wears a gold necklace around his neck. Aguirre and the search party believe El Dorado must be close.

The gluttonous Guzman proclaims the land in the name of Spain. Guzman mysteriously dies soon after. The expedition begins to descend into madness. On Aguirre's orders, Ursua is led away into the jungle and hanged. The party drifts past another cannibal village where they're attacked by arrows. The soldiers go ashore and burn the village.  In the confusion, Ursua's mistress Dona Atienza wanders into the woods, never to be seen again. Aguirre threatens anyone who tries to desert with death but his men are hungry and feverish. Soon, even Brother Gaspar and Aguirre's daughter Flores are mortally wounded by arrows. Aguirre pushes on, his raft overrun with monkeys, as he alone searches for the mythical El Dorado.

From Herzog (and cinematographer Thomas Mauch's) opening long shot of conquistadors, Incan slaves, and pack animals winding down a steep Peruvian mountain (actually filmed near the ancient Incan cloud city Machu Picchu), we know we're in for a haunting, mystical adventure.  With period costumes, cannons, and rugged locations, it's hard to imagine that Herzog made the film for $360,000. Herzog used just one 35mm camera that he stole from a Munich film school and had a film crew of only eight people. But like another Herzog film set on a Brazilian river 1982's FITZCARRALDO (also starring Klaus Kinski), Herzog gets a lot of mileage out of filming on a floating set. He can just reposition his actors around the raft in AGUIRRE and there's always interesting scenery as they float by.

Watching AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD as the Spanish exploratory party floats down the Peruvian river, attacked by spears and poison darts from unseen savages, I couldn't help but think of another film that takes place mostly on a river and encounters a faceless enemy - Francis Coppola's Vietnam War epic APOCALYPSE NOW (1979).  Like APOCALYPSE NOW'S American soldiers, Aguirre and his Spanish conquistadors fight not only inhospitable Indians but fight among themselves and venture into madness the farther into the jungle they go. Coppola has been quoted that AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD strongly influenced him in the making of APOCALYPSE NOW. In AGUIRRE, the men see a boat lodged high up in a tree.  Is it a figment of their imagination or an actual boat lifted to the top by high water?  In APOCALYPSE NOW, as Willard and his crew get closer to Colonel Kurtz's compound, they pass burnt out helicopters and fighter planes stuck in trees. Ghostly, hellish images that Coppola may have found inspiration in from Herzog's AGUIRRE visual style.

APOCALYPSE NOW was based on Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness set in the African  Congo but AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD'S journey echoes some of Conrad's story. In the novella, the protagonist Marlow seeks the god-like ivory trader Kurtz  and meets him farther down the river. In AGUIRRE, it's Aguirre who starts to believe he's a god while on the river. Aguirre quietly undermines Ursua, ordering new rafts to be made without Ursua's knowledge when their original rafts float away at night after the river rises. Aguirre has Ursua arrested for treason when Ursua decides to turn back from the mission and rejoin Pizarro. Aguirre has more on his mind than finding El Dorado (which he may not even believe exists). Aguirre has decided he wants to conquer this South American jungle single handedly, throwing out the Spaniards. By the end of the film, still floating aimlessly down the river on a makeshift raft, his crew dying, dead, or feverish, Aguirre and his army of monkeys push on as Aguirre dreams of marrying his daughter and starting a new dynasty in this inhospitable land.  To quote Kurtz from Heart of  Darkness, "The horror...the horror."

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is an impressive film to view with its exotic locations and historical based plot but it's the performance of the kinetic, volcanic Klaus Kinski as the ruthless Don Lope de Aguirre that brings AGUIRRE to another level and made Kinski an international film star. Kinski had appeared in minor roles in some noteworthy films like Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) and David Lean's DR. ZHIVAGO (1965). With his expressive blue bulging eyes and golden locks cascading down from his conquistador helmet, Kinski as Aguirre snarls, hisses, cajoles, and intimidates officers and soldiers alike. He walks like a hunchback at times but he's no cripple. He's a battle tested warrior. Yet for all of Aguirre's Machievellian tendencies, he's also a doting father to his fifteen year old daughter Flores, brushing her hair or showing her a rare pgymy sloth he found in the jungle. Kinski and director Herzog would have a turbulent relationship making AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD yet the two of them would make four more films together including WOYZECK (1979); a remake of F.W. Munrau's classic NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979), and FITZCARRALDO.

The rest of the cast of AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD may not be as famous as Kinski but they are uniformly good. It's an international cast: Helena Rojo who plays Ursua's loyal mistress Inez is Mexican; Ursua was played by Portugese actor Ruy Guerra; Del Negro as the priest Gaspar is American; German Peter Berling who was also a director and appeared in Herzog's FITZCARRALDO appears as Guzman, the delusional representative for the kingdom of Spain on the raft; and Aguirre's daughter Flores was played by Peruvian actress Cecilia Rivera. All the cast and extras deserve special credit for surviving such an arduous production and giving high quality performances.

The 1970s would be Werner Herzog's most creative decade. He became an internationally known director with AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD and led a wave of new German filmmakers that included Rainier Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders onto the cinematic scene.  Today, Herzog bounces between commercial films like RESCUE DAWN (2006) starring Christian Bale and BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009) with Nicholas Cage and making numerous documentaries on subjects as diverse as GRIZZLY MAN (2005) about doomed grizzly bear advocate Timothy Treadwell, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (2010) an intimate look at man's earliest known paintings in southern France, or a documentary series ON DEATH ROW (2012-13) about death row inmates. Herzog even finds time to act occasionally, appearing as the bad guy in the Tom Cruise action film JACK REACHER (2012).

Herzog actually combined two real life Spanish expeditions into AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD'S plot. In 1541, Gonzalo Pizarro did lead an expedition of 200 Spaniards and 4000 Indians into an unchartered area east of Quito, Ecuador. In AGUIRRE, Pizarro sends Ursua to continue the search for El Dorado.  In reality, Pizarro sent his lieutenant Francisco de Orellana to look for provisions for their large group.  Orellana and his brigade of fifty soldiers realized they could never make it back to Pizarro. Instead, Orellana explored the Amazon region. Pizarro would barely make it back alive to Quito in 1542. AGUIRRE'S  plot also borrows from the real life Lope de Aguirre. Aguirre joined an expedition led by Pedro de Ursua in 1560 to search for El Dorado. Ursua and Fernando de Guzman would be killed by Aguirre in a rebellion during the quest. Aguirre would raid several towns and murder his daughter Flores before he was caught and executed by the Spaniards in 1561. Herzog weaves pieces from both historical accounts into the film while making AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD his own original story as well.

The actual movie program with the image from AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD that captivated me as a youth.

As I've watched AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD a few times again recently, I've stared at that image of Aguirre and his daughter on the cover of the DVD that captivated me those many years ago. Gazing at the photo (which is taken from a scene in the film), I noticed something for the first time. Aguirre's daughter Flores has an arrow sticking out of her (which occurs toward the end of AGUIRRE). I was always staring at Kinski's face and his daughter Flores expression, trying to figure out if she was terrified of him, was he hurting her, or what their connection was? All these years the arrow sticking out of her chest eluded me. Until now.  That single photo for AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is one of the great posters of all time.

Even today, AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is a milestone in guerilla filmmaking, made by a young German filmmaker named Werner Herzog who was determined to get his vision onto celluloid and projected onto movie screens around the world.  AGUIRRE is an adventure film, a mystical film, a story of ambition and madness that we've seen from Shakespeare to the samurai period to modern battle fields. There's no CGI or rear projection as the actors climb down a steep mountain or stand on a makeshift raft down a roaring river in heavy armor.  AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is real filmmaking and as impressive today as it was in 1972.