Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films by John E. Mueller

by John E. Mueller

You can tell what a labor of love this was for the author. It must have taken years to write. It covers every single dancing picture he did. And every single dance, no matter how short. If you have have seen 3 or more Fred Astaire movies I am sure you would enjoy it. If you are a dance teacher I would say this book is a must have. My favorite thing about it is that Ginger Rogers is given credit for being Fred's ideal partner. Without Ginger we wouldn't be talking about Fred today ( Amazon customer)

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

John E. Mueller is an American political scientist in the field of international relations as well as a scholar of the history of dance. [Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Nancy Loe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the best of the many books written about Fred Astaire. Mueller pairs freeze-frames of every Astaire dance in every Astaire movie with trenchant analysis. You've never really seen an Astaire movie til you've watched it while reading this book!

[Nathan Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mueller's laserdisc commentary for Swing Time is a bracing experience, delivering more analysis of the dance scenes in that picture than a non-student of dance might have even thought possible, an opening up an entirely new way of thinking about filmed musicals. It's little surprise that his mammoth reference book on Astaire, also published in the 1980s, is equally incisive -- it's probably the most formidable and extensive film book I've ever held in my hands. The Stanley Kubrick Archives may equal it in terms of the amount of hard information included, but that book didn't have the rigorous organization of this one. I read most of Mueller's general comments on the films but his often multi-page analyses of each individual dance in every one of Astaire's musical films (!) will wait until I see the specific movies in question. (As of now I've seen less than six of Astaire's pictures.) But I can already tell you that this book is an astounding -- and immaculately designed and illustrated -- achievement, even so.

[K Better · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only do I love Fred Astaire, but I also love his pictures. The movies put in this book were amazing.