Sky Full of Moon

Enjoyed this great film from 1952 which features Harley Tumbleweed William, (Carleton Carpenter) who plays the role as a Rodeo Cowboy who has reached the age of 21 years and decides to head to Las Vegas, Nevada and make it rich. Harley visits a small gambling parlor owned by Al, (Keenan Wynn) and starts playing the coin machines and gets very lucky and draws the attention from Dixie Delmar, (Jan Sterling) who is a very attractive slim and trim blonde who makes some suggestions to him about how to gamble on the coin machines. Dixie and Harley decide to try their luck elsewhere and wind up having a very profitable night of gambling. Harley gets to like Dixie very much and offers her a ticket to Los Angeles and a fur coat with his winnings at the Rodeo and the two of them start off with plenty of action in the gambling casino's and then some trouble starts to happen. If you like to see old films of what Las Vegas looked like in the 1950's, this is the film for you. Enjoy.

Some vintage Las Vegas location photography helps this slight romance of a green rodeo cowboy (Carleton Carpenter, in an understated bid for MGM stardom) and a conniving but warmhearted gambling-den floozy (the always underrated Jan Sterling). Vegas doesn't seem the big soulless megalopolis it grew to be, and Keenan Wynn helps out as the owner of an exceedingly modest casino. It turns into a road picture in the second half, and you get to see just how desolate the surrounding Nevada countryside was. Not a whole lot happens, and it's over before you know it, but it's refreshingly unpretentious, and it doesn't go for the expected happy ending. Nice little B picture.

Carleton Carpenter had a wonderful charming personality that warmed up every film he made, beginning with the serious and underrated LOST BOUNDARIES. He did some fine work at MGM (delicious number with Debbie Reynolds in the Aba Daba Honeymoon scene and subsequent best-selling recording). But, here,in SKY FULL OF MOON, he turns in a superb, easygoing, depiction of a cowboy in the Las Vegas of the period. A natural ease and a clear nice performance make this film a winner. Of course, Jan Sterling, herself one of the unheralded 'greats' of the screen...and stage... brings her abilities to the pleasant story. The ending of the film is both proper, satisfying, and even tenderly sad. This film was made on a low budget at MGM just prior to Carpenter leaving the studio. But it is worth the search. You will find yourself smiling at the proceedings. You will admire the work of Carpenter and Sterling... and you will get a brief glimpse of Elaine Stewart, one of the screen's great beauties, with talent, who had a short film career. But you won't take your eyes off her during her brief scene. See this film, and relax at the work of pros with a simple, nice script and film.

I'm not sure but Sky Full Of Moon has the look and feel of one of Ann Sothern's old Maisie films. True Jan Sterling's character is a bit more dishonest than Maisie Revier ever was, but Sterling has a lot in common with that Brooklyn showgirl.

Sky Full Of Moon also anticipates the classic film Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray. Carleton Carpenter is a pleasant and drifting cowboy named tumbleweed for his lack of roots. He's arrived in Las Vegas to enter the big rodeo. But he's a wee short of cash.

Carpenter and Sterling hook up and they get into all kinds of situations. But as it is in these films these two are fated to be mated.

There's a nice supporting part for Keenan Wynn as a bar owner who Sterling rips off and gets Carpenter innocently caught up. In the end he turns out to be not quite a hard case.

Skyful Of Moon is a pleasant enough bit of viewing from MGM's B picture unit.

Carleton Carpenter is Tumbleweeds, just turned 21, and ready to take on Las Vegas. He wants to enter the rodeo events, but he'll have to raise all kinds of cash to do it. He wins some dough, and loses some dough. over and over. and meets up with Dixie (Jan Sterling). Keenan Wynn is in here as "Al", and Douglass Dumbrille; Dumbrille played the slightly shifty businessman in so many films! Dixie and Tumbleweed come up with a not-so-legal way to try to beat the slot machines, but can they pull it off without getting caught? this one moves pretty slowly, but I stuck it in there to the end. anyone who has been to vegas feels his pain as his luck changes. One of Carpenter's last few films was "Some of My Best Friends Are" in 1971, although he was twenty years older, so he may have not been recognizable. such a different role from this young cowboy. and, of course, his duet with Debbie Reynolds in Two Weeks with Love! Written and directed by Norman Foster. directed a bunch of the Charlie Chans, as well as Mister Moto. married to Claudette Colbert for a few years. and also Loretta Young's sister Sally!