Smartest Girl in Town "ketchup blood" on his face and then embraces him. RKO Pictures was also the studio which produced the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers series of films, thus "Smartest Girl's" comic supporting players, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore and Erik Rhodes, all had prominent roles in the previous year's Astaire-Rogers hit, "Top Hat". Furthermore, two months before "Smartest Girl's" release, Blore and Broderick were seen in the dancing duo's very successful 1936 effort, "Swing Time" and, the previous year, had been in another RKO musical comedy, "To Beat the Band". As for Blore and Rhodes, both had earlier appeared in the first Astaire-Rogers vehicle,
Ginger Rogers the 1940s. Her performance in "Kitty Foyle" (1940) won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Rogers remained successful throughout the 1940s and at one point was Hollywood's highest-paid actress, but her popularity had peaked by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in 1949 in the commercially successful "The Barkleys of Broadway". After an unsuccessful period through the 1950s, Rogers made a successful return to Broadway in 1965, playing the lead role in "Hello, Dolly!". More lead roles on Broadway followed, along with her stage directorial debut in 1985 on an off-Broadway production of "Babes in Arms".