MOVIES - March 15, 1990

New Hoofing Footage: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers take a few spins that a lot of their fans have never seen in the restored version of the 1935 classic, “Top Hat,” airing at 9 a.m. today on TNT network. Turner Entertainment recovered 10 minutes of dancing footage cut from RKO’s “Top Hat” negative in 1953 and put it back in. Richard May, who oversees Turner’s restoration program, acknowledged that because the original negative was destroyed, the footage recovered from other sources is detectable under close scrutiny. But better second- or third-generation quality Astaire and Rogers than none at all. And it isn’t colorized. “There are no plans to colorize it,” May said. “Musicals don’t take to colorization very well and audiences don’t care for it. But never say never.”