Astaire sings it through twice 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.

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. The dance begins with Astaire and chorus moving in step.

" It is a song about a song and Rogers sings it to Astaire after which an off-camera chorus repeats it while the dance ensemble is photographed, Busby Berkeley-style, from above.

Film in which Fred Astaire sings " Top Hat, White Tie and Tails "

* " Never Gonna Dance ": After Astaire sings Field's memorable closing line: " la belle, la perfectly swell romance " of Kern's haunting ballad, they begin the acknowledgement phase of the dance-possibly their greatest-replete with a poignant nostalgia for their now-doomed affair, where music changes to " The Way You Look Tonight " and they dance slowly in a manner reminiscent of the opening part of " Let's Face The Music And Dance " from Follow the Fleet.

* " Things Are Looking Up ": Astaire sings one of Gershwin's " most beautiful, yet underappreciated ballads ", followed by a romantic dance through the woods with Fontaine, where George Stevens artfully uses trees to hide Fontaine's terpsichorean shortcomings.

* This Heart of Mine: Classic standard by Harry Warren and Arthur Freed and written specially for Astaire who sings it to Bremer and then leads her in an extravagantly romantic dance of seduction and power-play.

* " Dearly Beloved ": Kern ’ s ballad became a major hit for Astaire – who sings it here – and it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

* " The Happiest Days Of My Life ": Powell sings this ballad to Peter Lawford, with Astaire sitting at the piano.

Later, in the 1930s, the on-screen dance pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers influenced all forms of dance in the USA and elsewhere.

Musical stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were among the most popular and highly respected personalities in Hollywood during the classical era ; the Fred and Ginger pairing was particularly successful, resulting in a number of classic films, such as Top Hat ( 1935 ), Swing Time ( 1936 ) and Shall We Dance ( 1937 ).

Many of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s also feature screwball comedy plots, notably The Gay Divorcee ( 1934 ) and Top Hat ( 1935 ).

During development at the University of Plymouth, in conjunction with BAE Systems and Sumitomo Precision Products, the iBot was nicknamed Fred Upstairs ( after Fred Astaire ) because it can climb stairs: hence the name Ginger, after Astaire's regular film partner, Ginger Rogers, for a successor product.

Top Hat was the most successful picture of Astaire and Rogers ' partnership ( and Astaire's second most successful picture after Easter Parade ), achieving second place in worldwide box-office receipts for 1935.

Dwight Taylor was the principal screenwriter in this, the first screenplay written specially for Astaire and Rogers.

Astaire and Rogers dance across this flat bridge in " Cheek to Cheek ".

" According to choreographer Hermes Pan, Astaire lost his temper and yelled at Rogers, who promptly burst into tears, whereupon her mother, Lela, " came charging at him like a mother rhinoceros protecting her young.

An additional night's work by seamstresses resolved much of the problem, however, careful examination of the dance on film reveals feathers floating around Astaire and Rogers and lying on the dance floor.

Later, Astaire and Pan presented Rogers with a gold feather for her charm bracelet, and serenaded her with a ditty parodying Berlin's tune:

Thereafter, Astaire nicknamed Rogers " Feathers " — also a title of one of the chapters in his autobiography — and parodied his experience in a song and dance routine with Judy Garland in Easter Parade ( 1948 ).

In the film, Astaire suffers from what Rogers terms an " affliction ": " Every once in a while I suddenly find myself dancing.

The routine ends as Astaire, now dancing with a statue, is interrupted by Rogers ' entrance, a scene which, as in The Gay Divorcee and Roberta, typifies the way in which Astaire inadvertently incurs the hostility of Rogers, only to find her attractive and wear down her resistance.

In " No Strings ( reprise )", Rogers, after storming upstairs to complain, returns to her room at which point Astaire, still intent on dancing, nominates himself her " sandman ", sprinkling sand from a cuspidor and lulling her, Horton and eventually himself to sleep with a soft and gentle sand dance, to a diminuendo reprise of the melody, in a scene which has drawn considerable admiration from dance commentators, and has been the subject of affectionate screen parodies.

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.

The final supported backbend – Astaire and Rogers in the climax to " Cheek to Cheek "

The first backbends occur at the end of a sequence where Astaire sends Rogers into a spin, collects her upstage and maneuvers her into a linked-arm stroll forward, repeats the spin but this time encircles her while she turns and then takes her in his arms.

With the music reaching its grand climax Astaire and Rogers rush toward the camera, then away in a series of bold, dramatic manoeuvers culminating in three ballroom lifts which showcase Rogers ' dress before abruptly coming to a halt in a final, deepest backbend, maintained as the music approaches its closing bars.

Rogers, having conducted the dance in a state of dreamlike abandon now glances uneasily at Astaire before walking away, as if reminded that their relationship cannot proceed.

They also point to the use Astaire made of her remarkably flexible back in classic romantic dances such as " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes " from Roberta ( 1935 ), " Cheek to Cheek " from Top Hat ( 1935 ) and " Let's Face the Music and Dance " from Follow the Fleet ( 1936 ).

His next partner, Lucille Bremer, was featured in two lavish vehicles, both directed by Vincente Minnelli: the fantasy Yolanda and the Thief, which featured an avant-garde surrealistic ballet, and the musical revue Ziegfeld Follies ( 1946 ), which featured a memorable teaming of Astaire with Gene Kelly to " The Babbit and the Bromide ," a Gershwin song Astaire had introduced with his sister Adele back in 1927.

Gene Kelly was originally cast as Don, but Kelly was injured ( he broke his ankle playing volleyball ) just prior to production and Astaire, who had announced his retirement from film, was coaxed back by Kelly to replace him.

Among those receiving such special treatment ( some more than once ) were Groucho Marx, Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn ( without an audience ), Bette Davis, Orson Welles, Noël Coward ( who appeared on the same show along with Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Tammy Grimes, and Brian Bedford ), John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, Woody Allen, Gloria Swanson, Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel (" on some shows I've had just one guest, but tonight I have Zero ") and David Bowie.

Despite the warnings of accordionist and assistant band leader Fred Ayres ( Astaire ), Roger is attracted to the beautiful and flirtatious Belinha ( Dolores del Río ) in the audience, he leaves the bandstand to pursue her.

* " Open Your Eyes ": This lilting waltz is sung by Powell at the beginning of a romantic routine danced by Powell and Astaire in front of an audience in the ballroom of a transatlantic liner.

She and famous fashion photographer Dick Avery ( Fred Astaire ) want models who can " think as well as they look.

In her autobiography, Charisse reflected on her experience with Astaire and Kelly: " As one of the handful of girls who worked with both of those dance geniuses, I think I can give an honest comparison.

The most notable degradation can be seen when Fred Astaire revisits the ruins of a train station set that had been used in the opening of The Band Wagon two decades earlier, and when Peter Lawford revisits exteriors used in his late-40s musical, Good News.

* The opening dance sequence from The Barkleys of Broadway with the credits overlay removed so that the dance routine by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers can be viewed unobstructed for the first time.

Bobby Hackett can be heard on the soundtrack to the 1940 Fred Astaire movie Second Chorus.

He greatly admired Fred Astaire, describing him as " the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times ... you see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing —- a pause here, a move there.

He dreamed of starring in movie musicals and would go to the movie theater to see Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in some of his favorite of their films including Easter Parade, Royal Wedding, On the Town and Summer Stock.