Royal Wedding Astaire, Fred performer Powell, Jane performer Pan, Hermes performer Film 1951-03-23 MGM This MGM musical centers around the love story in which Astaire meets, fall in love with, breaks up with, and finally marries a desirable and appealing woman, Sarah Churchill (Betty Hutton), but never does he ever sing to or dance with her. The four dance duets in the film are all onstage routines performed by Astaire and Jane Powell: one is particularly fine--a galumphing, Brooklyn-cum-zoot-suit vaudeville schtick called "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life"; the duet presents amusing variations on the funky slouch: studied finger snaps, sideways shuffles, rearing stomps, waddles, splayed strides, and concludes with a traveling pattern in half-crouch with contrapuntal hand-clapping. In the solo, "You're All the World To Me" Astaire dances up the walls and across the ceiling (probably his most famous number, the idea resonates back to Harold Nicholas in Orchestra Wives [1942] in a number staged with Nick Castle. In "Sunday Jumps" Astaire, alone in a rehearsal room, transforms a clothes tree into a compliant dancing partner, cradled in his arm and around his back, rolled in circles around the floor, carried on top of his foot, and rocked back and forth by its stand, swaying the clothes tree, and finally lifting it into the air, in a dazzlingly skillful 1.4 minute "pas de deux" filmed in one take with no editing. Hermes Pan contributed significantly to choreography in Astaire's solo, "Piano Dance" a boogie-woogie composed by Astaire that includes several falls to the floor and knee drops , the number considered the most acrobatic in his career (knee slides already performed by class act flash dancers and Jack Cole); Astaire frolics on top of the piano in a tap dance in which he slaps his foot on the keys, and when he opens up the piano cats fall out; the number ends with Astaire jumping down from the piano to retrieve his hat and coat, hopping up on the three chairs and tipping each one over backward with such rhythmic control he appears to to sailing over them. Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Billman, Larry: Film Choreographers and Dance Directors: An Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia, 1893-1955. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland (1997). Mueller, John: Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films. New York: Knopf (1985). Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html Hermes Pan (biography) loc.music.tdabio.147 Fred Astaire (biography) loc.music.tdabio.16 tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.296