Esther Louise Worth (1902-94) was the youngest child in a family vaudeville act before starting her film career while a teenager. She was only 22 when she played Mrs Darling in the Betty Bronson version of Peter Pan (1924).
Ralston starred in dozens of films during the 1920s and made a successful transition to sound. But her career faltered, and in her autobiography, published in 1985, she asserted this was the work of Louis B Mayer, whose advances she had resisted. In a familiar story, he ensured she was greylisted at the major studios.
Ralston’s final leading role was in Henry Hathaway’s To the Last Man (1933), though she continued acting, mostly on the stage and in television, until the 1960s.
Ralston was very good as the female lead, opposite Lawrence Tibbett, in MGM’s The Prodigal.
Jeff Farraday is a hobo, riding trains with his friends Doc and Snipe. He often tells them that his family owns a great mansion in the South, but they do not believe him.
Snipe (Cliff Edwards) and Doc (Roland Young) listen to Jeff (Lawrence Tibbett) talk about his home
Some time later, Jeff returns home and is given a lift on a wagon by Hokey. As Jeff walks the final stretch, his mother Cynthia is inside the house, with her son Rodman, her daughter Christine, Christine’s husband George, and Carter Jerome, a friend of Rodman’s. Antonia, Rodman’s wife, is keeping them all waiting while she dresses.
Carter sneaks upstairs to Antonia, and jokes that he is safe from discovery because Rodman never enters Antonia’s bedroom. Carter asks her to go away with him because she is unhappy with Rodman. She refuses, even when Carter tells her he loves her.
Christine sends Rodman upstairs to hurry Antonia. He does not see Carter, who is on the balcony. Rodman criticizes Antonia’s dress and presumes she has bought it for some other man. Antonia insists she has had no lovers since she married him. She asks him to divorce her so she can go away, but Rodman refuses. When she tells him how unhappy she is, he slaps her face. Rodman leaves, and Antonia tells Carter she will go away with him tomorrow night.
Jeff is reunited with his mother, Cynthia Farraday (Emma Dunn)
Cynthia does not go out with the younger people, and is reunited with Jeff after five years. She forces him to take a bath and burns his dirty clothes, giving him some of Rodman’s. Jeff tells Cynthia he plans to leave before the family returns, but she tempts him with fried chicken. They talk in vague terms about why Jeff had to flee the town; it had something to do with Rodman. Finally, Jeff falls asleep.
At breakfast the next morning, the family discusses Jeff’s return. Christine says he is irresponsible, but Cynthia insists he can stay for as long as he wishes.
Jeff plays with Christine’s children and they break his bed. While the family goes to church, Jeff is reunited with the servants and meets Hokey again. Antonia has been riding all morning and meets Jeff when she returns. They have a late breakfast and get along well. But when Jeff asks how she came to marry a stuffed short like Rodman, Antonia leaves to join the family at church.
Jeff finds Doc and Snipe hiding from the dog, and invites them into the house. After an enormous breakfast, while Jeff goes to fetch drinks, Doc relieves Snipe of the silverware he has pocketed.
Antonia returns and finds them singing round the piano [Without a Song]. Rodman, Christine and George return.
Jeff arranges to jump a train with Doc and Snipe that evening. Jeff and Rodman are soon quarrelling. Jeff assures his brother that he will be leaving soon. Cynthia interrupts their argument and expresses her pleasure at having all her children together [Home Sweet Home].
That evening, Jeff is about to board a freight train with his friends when he sees Antonia getting onto a passenger train with Carter. Antonia confesses to Carter that she does not love him, but she has to get away. Jeff, having realised what is happening, lures Carter away, then takes Antonia off the train. He takes her back to the house and explains why he had to stop her from ruining her life.
Back at the house, Antonia tells Rodman she has been with Jeff and he forbids her from having anything to do with his brother. Later, while Antonia rides with the local hunt, Jeff, Doc, Snipe and Hokey are fishing on the river. They see the fox and hide it from the hunt. Antonia sees what they have done and joins them.
Antonia (Esther Ralston) looks on as Jeff quarrels with his brother Rodman (Purnell Pratt)
Carter finds Jeff and Antonia together and warns Jeff to keep out of other people’s business. Carter accuses Jeff of being Antonia’s lover and Jeff knocks him down. Rodman rides up and Jeff takes the blame for the altercation, apologizing to Carter. Before they leave, Carter goads Jeff again with the fact that he loves his brother’s wife. Jeff tells Doc and Snipe that they are leaving soon.
At the Hunt Ball that evening, Cynthia asks Jeff why he is so restless. Jeff tells her he promised to look in at a party being held by Naomie, one of the servants. Rodman accuses Antonia of snubbing Carter because she hates his friends. When Antonia denies that Jeff was responsible for the afternoon’s fight, Rodman leaves to fetch Carter.
At Naomi’s party, the food is being prepared [Chitlins]. Jeff and his friends arrive and Hokey gets involved in a fight. A woman goes into labour and Doc is required to help with the delivery. [By the Riverside (?)]. The baby is born [A Child is Born].
Antonia arrives. Jeff walks her back to the house and tells her he is leaving. They kiss and Antonia tells Jeff that he loves her and asks him to take her with him. But Jeff explains that, whatever his feelings about Rodman, he cannot take his brother’s wife. Back at the house, Rodman confronts them and accuses Jeff of running true to form. Jeff admits that he loves Antonia and would be happy to work to support her, but that he has to leave. Cynthia interrupts and tells them that Jeff going away will not fix anything. She tells Rodman, against his protests, that he must divorce Antonia because she does not love him. She tells Jeff to get wandering out of his system and to come back after the divorce. Jeff leaves with Doc and Snipe [Without a Song].
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
