Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1196709
1 2 8 P E R S P E C T I V E | M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 2 0 RESHOOTS B Y N I K K I R U D L O F F, A S S O C I A T E E D I T O R A Top Hat is a screwball musical comedy film. The story centers on wealthy Dale Tremont (Ginger ogers, on holiday in London and enice. She assumes that American entertainer Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) is the husband of her friend Madge (Helen Broderick)—who's actually the wife of Jerry's business manager Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett orton. The unsigned sketch was done in charcoal and colored pencil on illustration board, and shows a hotel facade along the enice lagoon. The production was overseen by Van Nest Polglase, who supervised an RKO Art Department that numbered over 130 people during its heyday in the s. olglase is credited with developing the .W.S. ig White Set, and the Venice lagoon, with its classical Venetian architecture filtered through olglase's art deco sensibilty, is one of the most elaborate examples of the .W.S. The nit Art Director was arroll lark, who was responsible for the design and execution of the many sets in the film. The Venice lagoon set was so large it required two adjoining soundstages at 's ower Studio. The entire length was over feet. This fantasy representation of Venice was on three levels comprising dance oors, restaurants and terraces, all decorated in candy-cane colors, with the canal waters dyed black to achieve the desired reective quality. The vast enetian interiors were similarly inauthentic, reecting instead the latest ollywood tastes. p to that time it was the largest set ever built on the lot. Top Hat earned more than million at the box oce, making it the most sucessful musical to date, and was one of the productions that rescued RKO from bankruptcy (the other being King Kong. A. ILLUSTRATION OF HOTEL FACADE ON THE VENICE WATERFRONT. VAN NEST POLGLASE PRODUCTION DESIGNER. B. A FRAME FROM THE 1934 MOVIE TOP HAT SHOWING THE B.W.S. OF THE VENICE CANALS. B C O U RT E S Y O F T H E M A R G A R E T H E R R I C K L I B R A RY, A . M . P. A . S.