New Moon

MGM scrapped the ridiculous plot of the 1928 Romberg-Hammerstein stage operetta and replaced it with an even more ridiculous one, with Russian lieutenant Lawrence Tibbett romancing Princess Grace Moore despite her engagement to nobleman Adolphe Menjou. It's the sort of movie where characters say things like, "The one attractive woman on this ship and she would be a princess!" And Moore isn't especially attractive; she's dowdy, looks oddly at the camera, and is got up in some genuinely bizarre MGM fashions. Her character is shrewish, too, so when Menjou dispatches Tibbett to some remote outpost to battle some menacing, vaguely Turkish insurgents, you really feel he's better off without her. An eternally suave and amusing Roland Young defuses some of the operetta silliness; but it's hard not to get the giggles when Tibbett, trying to rouse the troops, barks endless song cues -- "All right, can I have 20 brave men with me? Fifteen? How about 10?" -- before launching into "Stout-Hearted Men." The climactic battle is clumsily shot and unconvincingly run in fast motion, like a Mack Sennett comedy, and it's never really in doubt whether Tibbett will return to Moore in one piece (singing full-voice, of course, whatever his wounds). The ludicrous conventions that killed operetta are omnipresent. But the score's good, and the two opera-trained stars do give enthusiastically of themselves when called on to sing. That's what counts.

Yes, it's an early musical based on an operetta and inherently ridiculous, silly, and overblown. Those are its best qualities too. As Oscar Wilde said, nothing succeeds like excess.

Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore don't go together, except when they sing. The combined force of their voices on "Wanting You" and "Lover Come Back to Me" is a sonic wonder to behold. Moore's acting is not bad, but she has a haughty standoffish quality toward the camera. Tibbett is more relaxed and retains the buoyant swashbuckling brio--and shattering baritone--that made him unique as an opera singer/film star. The supporting cast is a worldly set of sly dogs: Adolphe Menjou, Roland Young, and Gus Shy.

Director Jack Conway and cinematographer Oliver T. Marsh sneak in bits of camera movement more sophisticated than expected, but the editor seems to fall asleep on occasion. The picture throws in some vigorous battle scenes at the end; they're marred by undercranking.

New Moon is a pre-code film, with some eyebrow raising lines and innuendos in its first third. Most jaw-dropping is Tibbett's savage performance of "What Is Your Price Madam"--at an engagement party!

Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore meet on board the New Moon, crossing the Caspian Sea, bound for Adolph Menjou's newest assignment and marriage to Miss Moore. Of course the two great singers fall in love singing duets. Menjou gets wind and looks to get Tibbett resassigned some place he can't pose a threat.

MGM made some peculiar changes when they filmed the hit operetta (it had played over 500 performances on Broadway). They changed its setting from New Orleans to the Russian Empire for one thing. Well, exotic Russia was a popular setting for drama and comedy in the period. Cameraman Oliver Marsh struggles to keep his camera moving, leaving most of the struggle for cinematic excellence to Margaret Booth's editing. Also, Mr. Tibbett is a funny-looking fellow, with an obvious hairpiece and a double chin. He's not at all anyone's idea of what a romantic leading man should be.

Still when the leads start to sing, I forgot these issues. While the stye of music that Sigmund Romberg wrote for this show is strident, it includes the martial "Stout-Hearted Men" and the splendid "Lover Come Back To Me."

After New Moon had completed its run of 509 performances on Broadway a year earlier, MGM bought the rights to the film and for reasons known only to Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg scrapped the French colonial New Orleans setting and transferred the story to Tsarist Russia. They realized their mistake and 10 years later filmed it with most of the original story intact with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. It's the version that most know today.

The score was also mostly scrapped except for some of the most well known numbers. But what MGM did do was engage two of opera's greatest voices to star in this film, Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore.

If you were willing to pay some exorbitant ticket prices you could see Tibbett and Moore on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in any number of productions. Or you could listen to them on the radio and on record where they were some of the biggest classical selling artists of their day. Until Mario Lanza came along, Grace Moore in fact was the biggest classical selling artist.

And as I'm a real fan of operetta, hokey plots and all, a film like this is a real treat for the ear. Even Nelson and Jeanette don't sound as good as Larry and Grace singing the Sigmund Romberg-Oscar Hammerstein,II score.

The plot is hokey however. Tibbett and Moore meet on a sea voyage, the Caspian Sea where Moore is to marry the provincial governor and Tibbett, an Army lieutenant, to take up a new post. Of course they meet on the ship called The New Moon and fall for each other.

When the governor Adolphe Menjou hears of it, he gets Tibbett transferred to the far reaches of the frontier where the savage Turkomen are not real accepting of the Tsar's authority. Menjou's character is Boris Brusilov and he's known in court circles as Bedroom Boris so we know it's his vanity that's hurting not his pride. Still Tibbett insults Moore before taking his leave.

But Grace does not like to be scorned. She travels with her uncle Roland Young out to the outpost for the sole purpose of slapping Tibbett with her riding whip. But with the Turkomen closing in, she might pay big time for her little temper tantrum.

Of course it's ridiculous, more ridiculous than the original New Moon plot. But the chance to see Tibbett and Moore together is well worth it. Gus Shy even though the plot has changed still plays the same role as sidekick to the hero as he did on the stage version. He's the only one from the original stage production to make it on the screen.

Roland Young is as always drolly amusing. He steals every scene he's in. The New Moon is for fans of classical voices and escapist operetta of which there are fewer and fewer unfortunately.

Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore get their names above the title, but the more well-known name here is Adolphe Menjou, who was in SO many films right from the start of film-making. Onboard a ship in the caspian sea, Lt. Petroff (Tibbett) falls in love with a princess (Moore) who belongs to someone else, and that's the crux of the story. Moore was quite talented, as she was also a star singer for the Met Opera, as well an accomplished, versatile actress. Sadly, Moore died quite young in a plane crash. keep an eye out for the quiet, under-stated comic Roland Young from all the Topper movies. It's all quite good, and because so much of the story is told in song, this was remade in 1940 with singing team J. MacDonald and N. Eddy. and they kept a couple of the songs, written by Oscar Hammerstein, of course. This better, 1930 version is directed by Jack Conway, who had directed one of the first talkies. the 1940 version was also from MGM, but there was some hullabaloo over directing, and Leonard replaced van Dyke, causing continuity issues. Both are shown on TCM occasionally.