Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films

by John E. Mueller

Examines each of Fred Astaire's thirty-one musicals, provides a detailed analysis of all dance scenes, and describes Astaire's contributions to filmed dance

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

440 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

John E. Mueller (born June 21, 1937) 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.