Andrew Sarris summarized the career of Malcolm St Clair (1897-1952) thus: his silent films fizzed and his sound films fizzled, it was as simple and tragic as that.
St Clair was an important writer-director of the silent era, primarily in the field of comedy. Starting out as an actor-writer-director with Mack Sennett, he went on to co-direct a couple of shorts with Buster Keaton, from whom he learned a great deal about comedy technique. St Clair also made a series of more sophisticated comedies at Paramount in the mid-twenties, including the original adaptation of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1928), co-written by Anita Loos herself.
As Sarris suggests, the quality of St Clair’s pictures declined with the advent of sound, though he continued to work until 1948. One of his early sound films was the MGM musical Montana Moon, which he produced and directed.
One of St Clair’s more interesting later assignments was directing the silent era comedy sequences for Hollywood Cavalcade (1939), including restaging some of his earlier work.
Paul Neal (1896-1969) began working in Douglas Shearer’s sound department at MGM in 1929, and went on to record and mix sound for a variety of studios. He worked with a range of important filmmakers, including John Ford (The Whole Town’s Talking, 1935), Frank Borzage (History is Made at Night, 1937), William Wyler (Wuthering Heights, 1939) and Henry Hathaway (The Dark Corner, 1946).
Neal recorded sound on five Metro musicals: Montana Moon, The Rogue Song, The Cuban Love Song, Dancing Lady and The Cat and the Fiddle.
British-born Phil Dunham (1885-1972) made his first screen appearance in 1914 and was in over 260 films. He had a parallel career as a screenwriter and worked on some of the ‘race’ pictures that featured all-Black casts. These included The Duke is Tops (1938), in which Lena Horne made her debut, and Gang Smashers (1938), which featured MGM alumna Nina Mae McKinney.
Dunham had uncredited roles in six Metro musicals, beginning with Montana Moon. The others were It Happened in Brooklyn, The Unfinished Dance, Annie Get Your Gun, Singin’ in the Rain and Easy to Love.
Gwendolyn Witter (1914-2018) played bits in three MGM musicals (Montana Moon, Children of Pleasure and Madam Satan) before moving on to more substantial roles at Paramount, often paired with Bing Crosby,
Carlisle retired in 1943 and lived for another 75 years.
Stella Dorothy Sebaston (1904-57) was a chorus girl who became a stage and then screen actor, securing a five-year contract at Metro. She appeared with Joan Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), and supported them again in Montana Moon, playing Crawford’s sister.
Sebastian appeared in one other MGM musical, Free and Easy, with her friend Buster Keaton. Her contract ended and her career declined through minor studios, ending in playing bit parts.
John Brown (1904-74) was a college football star whose good looks secured him a screen test and a five-year contract with MGM. He played opposite Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), but his thick Alabama accent meant he was never going to be cast as a city sophisticate after the introduction of sound. Brown’s accent was suitable, however, for the cowboy he played when reteamed with Crawford in Montana Moon.
Brown’s career suffered a double blow in 1931 when he was replaced by the rising Clark Gable in Laughing Sinners, and then failed to secure the lead in Tarzan the Ape Man. His MGM contract ended and Brown spent the rest of his, very successful and prolific, career in Poverty Row westerns, frequently playing characters called ‘Johnny Mack Brown’.
Joan Prescott, the flirtatious daughter of wealthy John Prescott, arrives at the last minute to board her father’s private train. He warns her that he does not want any more foolishness from her. Joan’s sister, Elizabeth, tells her she is in love with Jeff, a man she met in Boston and who is on the train. Joan has often stolen men from Elizabeth, but she promises not to do so this time.
Joan does not like Jeff, but that evening he tells her that he is in love with her. On impulse, Joan gets off the train at the next stop. She buys a ticket back to New York but, while waiting for the train, comes across the campfire of Larry Kerrigan, a Texas cowboy. They talk, and Joan tells him how pleasant it is to be away from all the city noise. Larry says he often dreams of going to a city, to get away from the silence. Joan is surprised to find that Larry works on a ranch owned by her father. Larry says Mr Prescott is admired by all his men, but that he has “a pair of high-falutin’ daughters that ought to be hog-tied”. Larry nicknames Joan ‘Montana’ and she sleeps alongside him by the campfire. Over the next few days, they fall in love.
City girl Joan Prescott (Joan Crawford) and cowboy Larry Kerrigan (Johnny Mack Brown) bond round the old campfire
Elsewhere on the ranch, cowboy Froggy meets Bloom, a travelling doctor from the Bronx, who pulls Froggy’s bad tooth.
Joan and Larry arrive at the main camp [Montana Call] and he introduces her to Froggy, Bloom and the others as his wife. He does not tell them she is the boss’s daughter.
Joan and Larry say goodbye the next morning [Happy Cowboy] and ride to the ranch, where they tell her father and the others that they are married. Prescott takes Larry into the library. He tells Larry he is very pleased about the marriage, but cannot tell Joan because what he likes she is always against; but Joan overhears anyway.
Joan’s friends throw a party for her at the local roadhouse and Larry persuades her to go without him, because he does not have the proper clothes. Larry is unhappy that she does not get home until six in the morning. When Larry says he has to go to work, Joan says he does not have to because her dad will look after them. Larry tells her that is not the way things are going to be. Joan apologizes and he leaves for work.
Later, Joan and Larry go together to another party, at which both the city sophisticates and the ranch hands are present. Froggy and Bloom tease Larry about his fancy clothes. [Get Up You Cowboy; Trailin’ in Old Montana].
Larry dislikes Jeff and is unhappy when he sees Joan flirting with him. Larry tells Joan her city friends do not live up to his standards of decency. She says she will dance with whom she pleases. She then performs a tango with Jeff, who snatches a kiss at the end.
Joan tells Larry they made a mistake in marrying because neither belongs in the other’s world, and she refuses to leave with him. After a moment, Joan rushes after Larry and apologizes, but he refuses to come back with her.
Some time later, back with the other ranch hands [The Moon is Low; Sing a Song of Old Montana], Larry is missing Joan. Mr Prescott comes to tell Larry they are all returning to New York tomorrow. He asks Larry to talk to Joan, saying this is the first time he has ever seen her regret anything. Larry brightens when he hears that, but still refuses. [The Moon is Low].
Froggy (Cliff ‘Ukelele Ike’ Edwards) leads a cowboy sing-song
At the station, Joan is hoping Larry will at least come to say goodbye. At a water stop, the train is held up by masked Mexican bandits. One of them grabs Joan, who berates Jeff and the others for not helping her, and says Larry would have done something. The bandit carries off Joan and, laughing, she tells Larry to take off the mask because she would recognize his voice anywhere. Mr Prescott explains the trick to the other passengers, while Joan and Larry ride off happily with the other ‘bandits’ [Happy Cowboy].
The problem and the failure of Lord Byron of Broadway are epitomized by the central cast, whose acting is painfully bad. None of its three leading players–Charles Kaley, Marion Shilling and Ethelind Terry–had any experience of film acting. Kaley, in fact, was not an actor at all, but a singer and band leader. And the result of this bold (or foolhardy) casting by producer Harry Rapf was to bring the careers of Kaley and Terry to an abrupt halt, while Shilling, who continued acting for a few more years, was relegated to ‘B’ westerns. Lord Byron might have turned out very differently with the originally-announced leads, Bessie Love and William Haines, though it is unlikely Love would have thanked anyone for another dose of noble heartbreak.
Roy (Charles Kaley) gives Bessie (Gwen Lee) the go by. Kaley is using facial expression #1 (serious), rather than #2 (grinning)
The lack of substance in the lead players (though Terry does her best) meant that much of the heavy lifting, in terms of light and shade, and of humour, was left to supporting players Cliff Edwards and Benny Rubin. Both were affable players, but neither was capable of holding a picture together.
The problem with the performances was exacerbated by Rapf’s equally bizarre decision to assign the picture to William Nigh, a third-tier action director attempting to punch above his weight at Hollywood’s biggest studio. Harry Beaumont, of Broadway Melody fame, was brought in to undertake significant reshooting, but was unable to save the film, which drags painfully even though only 80 minutes long. Anne Bauchens, the highly-respected editor of Cecil B DeMille’s films, must have despaired at the material she was given to work with.
Lord Byron of Broadway is further undermined by an inferior Freed-Brown score. The stand-out song, ‘Should I?,’ is familiar to most musical fans from the snatch of it heard in Singin’ in the Rain.
Choreographer Sammy Lee is Berkeleyesque before Berkeley
The film has the Technicolor sequences that seemed obligatory at the time. The ‘Blue Daughter of Heaven’ number was presumably shot by Beaumont, and does show significant development from his first musical. The camera moves in and out of the stage space, and Sammy Lee’s choreography is even captured in Berkeleyesque overhead shots filmed some months before Berkeley himself came to Hollywood. The geometric patterns are simple and lack Berkeley’s firm control, but they are a brave attempt.
