The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: New Moon (1930)

  • New Moon (1930)

    Some Thoughts

    The 1930 version of New Moon is unmistakably a pre-code picture, the two lovers having sex within the first fifteen minutes but remaining unmarried until almost the end. Even more strikingly, the sexual relationship is engineered, not by the philandering Lawrence Tibbett, but by Grace Moore, knowingly having fun with no intention of taking it seriously. 

    Tanya (Grace Moore) reveals to Michael (Lawrence Tibbett) that she knows a dirty song when she hears one

    Moore was, by her own admission, no great shakes as an actor (she described herself as “like a singing Mae West with long hair”), but she is much more effective here than in A Lady’s Morals, where the virginal Jenny Lind gave her little scope to do anything but sing. Her Princess Tanya is bold, promiscuous and, at least in the first half, a cold-hearted opportunist, conspiring with her uncle and aunt to marry wealth. Moore’s performance is playful; notice the subtle  reaction when Adolphe Menjou’s wandering hand finds her outstanding derrière.

    Tanya reacts as Boris (Adolphe Menjou) cops a feel

    Lawrence Tibbett gives a solid performance, the highlight being his fully-integrated rendition of the beautiful ‘Lover Come Back to Me’. He is also suitably vituperative when singing ‘What is Your Price Madam?’, a number by Stothart and Grey which holds its own with the songs retained from the original Romberg-Hammerstein score.

    New Moon benefits from having two outstanding supporting players in Roland Young and Adolphe Menjou. Young, as the easygoing uncle, seems much more comfortable here than in the frenzy of Madam Satan and steals all his scenes. Menjou, as always, personifies debonair sophistication as ‘Bedroom Boris’. Gus Shy, the only member of the original stage cast to feature in the film version, was always an acquired taste, but he does, at least, get to die a noble death.

    Tanya has driven an unfeasibly long distance, into dangerous country, for the pleasure of horse-whipping Michael

    Jack Conway’s direction is above-average for Metro’s earliest musicals, especially in the first, boudoir comedy section.  The second half, set in the fortress, is less interesting, though it features some excellent photography by Oliver T Marsh and impressive process shots. There is also a well-staged battle sequence that is quite unexpected in a musical. Apparently the effort of wrangling two Metropolitan Opera stars wore out Conway and Sam Wood completed the picture, which may explain some dropping off in the quality of the staging.

    Nonetheless, while New Moon creaks like the ship the characters sail on, it remains eminently watchable.

  • Oscar Hammerstein II

    Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein (1895-1960) was one of the biggest names in 20th-century musicals, both literally and metaphorically.

    Hammerstein and two of his main collaborators, Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers, were key to the development of the integrated musical, whereby songs are woven into the plot rather than being simply musical interpolations. In the world of film musicals, there were attempts to achieve this as early as 1930, but it is undeniable that Hammerstein’s work as lyricist, librettist and producer were hugely influential.

    Oscar Hammerstein’s career can be divided into distinct halves. During the first part, he partnered with a variety of composers, including Kern (Show Boat, 1927), Rudolf Friml (Rose-Marie, 1924) and Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song, 1926). Then, in 1943, he joined with Rodgers to produce Oklahoma!. This was the first in a series of seminal musicals, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949) and The Sound of Music (1959), most of which were filmed (with varying degrees of success). 

    MGM did not adapt any of Hammerstein’s work with Rodgers, but did film The New Moon (written in 1927 with Romberg) twice, as it did with Rose-Marie. The studio made one of the several versions of Show Boat.  Hammerstein songs were also featured in The Night is Young , The Great Waltz and the Romberg biopic Deep in My Heart.

  • Sigmund Romberg

    Zsigmund Rosenberg (1887-1951) was a Hungarian-born composer and one of the most celebrated composers of operettas for the American stage.

    Romberg arrived in New York in 1909 and eventually found work playing the piano in cafes and restaurants. He published a few songs and came to the attention of the Shubert brothers, who commissioned him to write material for their Broadway revues. He wrote for a number of shows starring Al Jolson.

    In the 1920s, Romberg wrote three classic operettas in the Viennese style–The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926) and The New Moon (1928)–working with various lyricists, including Oscar Hammerstein II. He also wrote film scores and adapted his own work for the screen.

    MGM made two versions of New Moon (dropping the definite article) and also adapted Rosalie, Maytime and The Student Prince. He also contributed music to The Night is Young and The Girl of the Golden West.

    In 1954, Romberg was the subject of an MGM musical-biopic, Deep in My Heart, which drew extensively on his back catalogue.

  • Cyril Hume

    Former journalist and occasional novelist Cyril Joseph Hume (1900-1966) had a fairly workaday career as a Hollywood screenwriter. The high point of the 1930s was adapting Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and contributing to several of its sequels, and co-writing Flying Down to Rio (1933).

    Then, in 1956, came Hume’s annus mirabilis. He wrote the screenplay for the science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet, and followed it up by co-writing the estimable Nicholas Ray picture Bigger Than Life.

    Early in his career, Hume contributed dialogue to New Moon.

  • New Moon (1930)

    The Crew

    Jack ConwayDirector
    Sam WoodDirector (uncredited)
    Sylvia ThalbergAdaptation
    Frank ButlerAdaptation
    Cyril HumeDialogue
    Sigmund RombergComposer
    Oscar Hammerstein IILyricist
    Herbert StothartComposer
    Clifford GreyLyricist
    William AxtComposer
    Paul BernProducer
    Oliver T MarshCinematographer
    Margaret BoothEditor
    Cedric GibbonsArt Director
    George WestmoreMakeup Artist
    Douglas ShearerSound Recording Director

  • Hedwiga Reicher

    Hedwig [sic] Reicher (1884-1971) was a German actor who made her Broadway debut in 1909. Two years later she played Ellida in the American premiere of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea (1888).

    Reicher did not make her first screen appearance until 1925, and only ever had small roles in about twenty films. Her most prominent part was playing Janet Gaynor’s mother in Frank Borzage’s Lucky Star (1929).

    The following year, she had a bit part in New Moon.

    In 1913, Reicher played Columbia, the personification of the United States, in the allegorical tableau featured in the Woman Suffrage Procession held in Washington DC.

  • Nina Quartero

    Gladys Quartaro (1908-85) was a New York-born Italian whose Mediterranean looks led to a career playing characters named Consuelo, Maria, Lola, Anita, Chiquita and Rosita.

    Quartero made her debut aged 18 with a bit part in D W Griffith’s The Sorrows of Satan (1926). One of her more prominent roles was with John Wayne in Arizona (1931), playing Conchita. She acted for about seventeen years, making her final appearance (again with Wayne, but this time as Carmencita) in The Lady Takes a Chance (1943). She retired after marrying her third husband.

    Nina Quartero made a brief appearance in the first New Moon. 

  • David Mir

    A 1931 newspaper article described Vladimir Lasareff (1886-1962) as a “former prince of royal Russian Blood [who] today earns a livelihood in slapstick comedy roles”.

    Mir, who was cousin to the prince who murdered Rasputin, had fled Russia during the October Revolution. Finding himself in Hollywood, he renewed a pre-Revolution acquaintance with the writer Elinor Glyn and was given a part in His Hour (1924), which she wrote and directed with King Vidor. This meant John Gilbert had to play a Russian nobleman alongside the real thing. 

    Mir worked on a number of other Glyn pictures, even designing costumes for The Only Thing (1925).

    Mir worked steadily as a supporting player during the last years of silent cinema, but the parts began to dry up after the introduction of sound. His last appearance was a bit in Artists and Models Abroad (1938).

    In 1930, Mir was probably the only genuine Russian aboard the New Moon.

  • Lew Meehan

    James Llewellyn Meehan (1890-1951) began his film career in 1919 and was in nearly 250 pictures, mostly without credit. The majority of these were westerns, though generally of the ‘B’ kind; the rare exceptions included Cimarron (1931), Annie Oakley (one of eight westerns he made in 1935) and Fritz Lang’s The Return of Frank James (1940).

    The 1930 version of New Moon was Meehan’s sole appearance in an MGM musical.

  • Babe London

    Anyone who grew up watching Laurel and Hardy shorts on television would recognize Jean Glover (1901-80) as Dulcy, who struggles against all the odds (plus Stan) to elope with Ollie in Our Wife (1931).

    London had made her screen debut aged 18, and made over fifty silent pictures, working with Chaplin, Keaton, Langdon and Fields. Most of her roles focussed on her size. When health issues in the 1940s forced her to lose a lot of weight, the quality of the parts offered declined.  

    She continued acting in small roles until Sex Kittens Go to College in 1960. Then, in the 1960s, she developed a second career as an artist. Her paintings of silent stars became very popular, and she put on a solo exhibition called ‘From Pratfalls to Portraits’.

    Babe London appeared in two Metro musicals, the first New Moon and No Leave, No Love.

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