Le diable au corps

The Moons Our Home is one of my favourite super obscure films with only 139 users ratings on IMDB as of writing this review and a proclamation from Bill Murray as one of his favourite films (look up his appearance on the Siskel and Ebert Holiday Gift Guide 1988 in which he mentions he would like a video cassette of the film for Christmas). The Moons Our Home has only recently seen its due on DVD on the Universal Vault Series although when I watched the film I had to access it through a torrent. Not the greatest image quality but as a big fan Margaret Sullavan and a Henry Fonda enthusiast I was overjoyed to get a hold of the film and was not let down in the slightest.

What surprised me about Margaret Sullavan's performance as movie star Cherry Chester (real name Sarah Brown) is how much she reminded me of Jean Harlow, always changing mood within a split second. Sullavan and Harlow are two actresses I didn't think I would ever compare so it's fascinating to see this aspect of her screen persona I didn't even know existed. Right from the beginning of the film Cherry Chester is screaming, throwing tantrums and acting like an all-round pretentious drama queen. There is even a Hepburn-esque quality to her character with her fierce desire to be independent as well as clothing choices of a turtleneck and trousers.

Henry Fonda's role as the explorer Antony Amberton is very much the same as we are introduced to his character escaping from a group of screaming fans which he compares to his daring exploits from the jungles of Africa to the peak of Mount Everest like a male Greta Garbo. Also, notice how all his fans are giddy women, yeah I don't think he's exactly Roald Amundsen. Sullavan and Fonda had previously been married, making their pairing feel more tender and genuine with moments like their histrionics in the snow being as adorable as they are funny. The Moon's Our Home also features innovative use of split screen in which Sullavan and Fonda are given half of the screen to represent different rooms in which they move in parallel and symmetrical tandem.

The other aspect which so effectively carries The Moon's Our Home is all the great character actor moments with the likes of Beulah Bondi, Margaret Hamilton and Walter Brennan as the hard of hearing justice of the peace; a brief but very funny role. However, I think the best of these moments involves Charles Butterworth as Horace, the man who is chosen by Cherry/Sarah's grandmother as her arranged husband. This is despite in his many unsuccessful marriage proposals to different women. Listen to how mundanely and awkwardly he describes how he will "lift her off her feet" while being distracted by a game of solitaire. The Moon's Our Home is full of moments like this which are funny on different levels.

It's already a joy to discover a film I love, even more so when it's a film that almost no one else will watch in a million years. It gives me the sense that it's my movie. I guess this is what hipsters must feel like listening to bands no one else has heard off.

If you like, as I do, the romantic comedies from the thirties and early forties then this movie might be a good choice. It's definitely lightweight, but Margaret Sullavan is utterly charming as a movie star with a sophisticated and elegant public persona, but a decidely klutzy and ditzy offscreen personality. Henry Fonda is the bestselling author, who has to run away from adoring fans in Beatlesque fashion (about twenty five years before they had to).

When they meet, they have no idea the other is really famous, and the silliness ensues. Henry Fonda is always worth watching, and the supporting cast includes some favorites like the Wicked Witch of the West herself, Margaret Hamilton, Beulah Bondi and of even in a brief part it's fun to watch Walter Brennan.

You can easily picture Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in these parts (all the way down to Sullavan's insistence on wearing pants). The resolution is a little weak, and at places the plotting tends to sag, but all in all, a fun time.

The Moon's Our Home is a fast moving, machine-gun fire paced romantic comedy from 1936. It is the story of the romance of Cherry Chester, a movie star, and Anthony Amberton, a travel writer. Ms. Chester, travelling under her birth name, Sarah Brown, can't stand the writings of Anthony Amberton. Amberton, using pseudonym John Smith, detests "marshmallow-faced" movie stars, most of all Cherry Chester. For better or for worse, however, Cherry and Anthony don't know the real names when they meet, and subsequently are able to fall in love.

The novelty of this film is that the two stars, Margaret Sullavan and Henry Fonda, were married and divorced by the time the production started. The fights (verbal and phsyical) seem wonderfully real and the love and chemistry seem genuine also. There is a bitter-sweet feeling with this bit of trivia, especially when the couple separates (a few times).

The cast, in addition to the leads, are wonderful. Especially Oscar-winner Walter Brennan, as the justice of the peace. In one of the best and funniest marriages ever to take place on the screen, Brennan recites the ceremony and Amberton and Chester have a fight. It just so happens, however, that each time the j.p. asks "do you take..." they just happen to say in their own conversation "I do." It's irresistable.

Although it rarely turns up, get your hands on this film by all means. Besides being a lot of fun, it is also the screwball comedy that has the most innuendo that seemed to sneak by the censors. Fonda's character "has conquered the highest peaks known to travellers." And a personal favorite, the fact that Cherry won't "mind the bumps" on a truck ride... Modern audiences may not get it, but to the keen ear, this film is a delight as well as to the eyes...

The Moon's Our Home is a classic example of Hollywood movie-making of a bygone era.

In the only film that they did together former married couple Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan teamed together for Walter Wanger in a nice screwball comedy The Moon's Our Home. Both come from different worlds and both use pseudonyms in their professional lives.

Sullavan is a temperamental movie star not totally unlike the real Sullavan was reputed to be. She was not a fan of the studio system of the day and wasn't shy about letting people know it. Fonda is a novelist who uses a pen name like Samuel Langhorne Clemens did. For this to work you have to believe that Sullavan wasn't much of a reader and Fonda disdained the cinema.

Both however had the habit of using their rather pedestrian real names of John Smith and Sarah Brown when they wanted to just get away. And the two do meet in a New York taxi under those real names and Fonda offers her a chance to go to a nice New Hampshire rural inn he always holidayed at. She takes him up and the romance begins.

It could happen that way. When Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were courting it was a fact that Monroe knew he was an ex-ballplayer but had no concept of his legend in his field. We do lead compartmentalized lives and have our set interests.

The former marrieds get some nice support from Spencer Charters and Margaret Hamilton as the inn proprietors, Walter Brennan as a deaf justice of the peace, Charles Butterworth who is the silly playboy ever ready to marry Sullavan and Beulah Bondi and Henrietta Crossman as her aunt and grandmother respectively. Bondi has a classic scene with Butterworth as she gets him away from Sullavan. And Butterworth is always fun delivering those wonderful dead pan lines.

Whatever chemistry the stars had that made them both take the first steps to marriage and to each other, Fonda and Sullavan had enough left to turn out a good typical screwball comedy of the Thirties with The Moon's Our Home.

Cherry (Margaret Sullavan) is a spoilt brat of an actress who is summoned to New York by her grandmother Lucy (Henrietta Crosman) so that Horace (Charles Butterworth) can propose to her once more. However, Cherry is still not interested in Horace. Cherry meets famous author Anthony (Henry Fonda) by chance and neither recognize each other. They fall in love and arrange to stay at a secluded inn together under assumed names. Love is in the air and they get married but they still both don't know of the other's true identity. Can love prevail when the truth is uncovered.....?......I bet you can guess the answer...

This is a film of misunderstandings but there isn't quite enough of a storyline. Henry Fonda has a plump face which is weird, Margaret Sullavan's histrionics are irritatingly childlike at times and Charles Butterworth delivers his lines like a bad actor.

There are a couple of funny moments but not many. The film just managed to keep my interest - it just wasn't very interesting.