It is a little-known fact that Hermes Pan was the preferred dancing partner of Fred Astaire. Meeting in 1933 they shared a lifelong professional collaboration and friendship. Astaire relied on Hermes for choreographing, rehearsing and fine-tuning his dances. They moved together like no other pair and were perfectly matched, thus Hermes often stepped in for Ginger Rogers and various other dance partners when it came to perfecting the routines off-camera.

In this grainy number from ‘Second Chorus’ (1940) called ‘ Me and the Ghost Upstairs’ we can see the only surviving footage of Astaire and Hermes dancing together. The scene was cut from the film.

The framing has a subtle powder pink mount as part of the stepped window into this spellbinding collaboration.