Sky Full of Moon

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.

The best reason to watch "Sky Full of Moon" is so you can see old Las Vegas....and it's completely unrecognizable today. Throughout this film, Vegas looks like a western town...with a strong cowboy touch and with tiny casinos...and almost all of this was bulldozed decades ago.

The story is very slight. Harley (Carleton Carpenter) has come to Vegas to enter the rodeo. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a rube and doesn't even have the money to enter the competition! So, after meeting up with a nice young lady (Jan Sterling), he goes about trying to gamble to increase his savings....but eventually the pair end up on an adventure.

This movie is pleasant, undemanding and enjoyable as a time-passer.

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.

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.

This film is only good to see the old Vegas of 1952. They're is a lot of places featured especially The Flamingo. A nonsense story.