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Even though this site is mostly about how great movies are, and about how they make money, there really are few unqualified joys in the world of cinema. Watching Fred Astaire dance will always be one of those joys. Astaire, even as he aged past his time with Ginger Rogers, remained one of the most effortless, charming screen presences. Whether he was dancing by himself, with a human partner, or with an inanimate object, he gave everything life with the power of his tapping, swaying, swinging feet and body. Though he’s been in many more classics, one of the best displays of his talents is in the 1951 musical comedy Royal Wedding, directed by Stanley Donen only one year before he would go on to make the greatest musical ever, Singin’ In The Rain. Royal Wedding isn’t that good, but you could do far worse.

As with any of the old MGM musicals, Royal Wedding has a simple enough story. Astaire and Jane Powell play a brother-and-sister dancing duo who go across the pond to London to perform at the upcoming royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip (the film is set in 1947). While there, they fall in love with very different people, get into various romantic scrapes, but end up living happily ever after. You can call that a spoiler alert if you like, but if you’ve ever seen, you know, a movie, you shouldn’t be surprised about where the plot of this film is going. What makes Royal Wedding so notable is its dance sequences, some with both Astaire and Powell — the most impressive set piece with the two of them comes on the ship they take to London — and one with Astaire and some zero-gravity-style tricks.

Fred Astaire was the gentleman of dance in the golden age of Hollywood musicals. Gene Kelly was more of a sneaky, winking Puck of a dancer; watch his Moses Supposes duet with Donald O’Connor in the middle of Singin’ In The Rain, and it’s hard not to see him metaphorically jabbing his elbow in your ribs, making sure you just saw what he did. It was rare for Astaire to physically explode in dance, though there is one great example. In his duet with Eleanor Powell in Broadway Melody of 1940 — an amazing feat of tap-dancing combined with appropriately simple direction from Norman Taurog — the two dance to Begin the Beguine, and there’s a point midway through where the music hits a quick crescendo, and his whole body seems to expand from its typically understated pose. There’s something breathtaking about the whole sequence, but in general, Astaire kept his eyes on just being a great tap-dancer.

This doesn’t mean Astaire wasn’t capable of jaw-dropping twists in his dancing. The sequence everyone thinks of when they think of Fred Astaire dancing solo comes from this film, where he’s so besotted with a young woman that he dances in his hotel room, from one side of the floor to the other, and then right up to the wall and ceiling, all in one take. The sequence is truly memorable, a great reason why dance in film shouldn’t be pushed aside when it’s done right. The technical proficiency in the scene — not just from Astaire, but from the mechanics of making it look like Astaire’s actually on the ceiling — is amazing, but there’s a reason for the scene to exist aside from just being really cool. As it goes with pretty much every MGM musical, there is some romantic melodrama, but who cares when you can watch Fred Astaire?

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