Several commentators on Montana Moon have focused on the inadequacy of its sound recording. Richard Barrios, for example, points out to “Joan Crawford singing on horseback zillions of feet away from the camera sounding just as loud as the cowboy chorus warbling in the foreground. This may, in part, be attributable to shooting many sequences away from the soundstage. The number cited by Barrios, ‘Montana Moon,’ was filmed on location, enabling the distance he mentions. The staging may have been decided weeks after the recording for playback was made, resulting in the dissonance of sound and image.
Montana Moon gets little love from the few writers on early musicals. Edwin M Bradley goes so far as to claim that Joan Crawford “is not pleasingly photographed by the usually reliable William Daniels,” which is palpably untrue.
Gay young thing Joan (Joan Crawford), backlit by William Daniels
For my part, while the plot of Montana Moon is clearly nonsensical, I find it far more watchable than its immediate Metro musical predecessor, Lord Byron of Broadway. It is well-photographed (whatever Bradley says) and better-acted than many films of the period. And if Johnny Mack Brown is no great leading man, he is John Barrymore compared to Charles Kaley.
The songs provided by Stothart-Grey and Freed-Brown are mediocre but inoffensive, and in a couple of cases difficult to attribute. Crawford, as always, does her best with the talent she has, but much of the singing is left to supporting player Cliff Edwards, the world’s most-unlikely cowboy until you look at Benny Rubin (check out Rubin in the closing shot, grinning away as if he lived on horseback).
Larry (Johnny Mack Brown) carries off Joan, while Bloom (Benny Rubin) looks on
Montana Moon, in addition to William Daniels, had some classy people working offscreen. Director Mal St Clair was past his best, but he and editor Carl Pierson pace the picture quite well, while costumes were provided by Adrian.
Often cited as the first Singing Cowboy film, Montana Moon does not deserve a high reputation, but it does merit a better one than it has.
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].
If the MGM musical has any cultural cachet today, it is usually attached to a handful of Hollywood stars–Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly–or a similarly small number of iconic films: Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and An American in Paris (1951), perhaps Meet Me in St Louis (1944).
But ‘the MGM musical’ actually encompasses 215 individual pictures, mostly produced at MGM’s Culver City studio between 1929 and 1972. Many of these films are now forgotten, even by committed film buffs.
Montana Moon (1930) is no Meet Me in St Louis and Malcolm St Clair was certainly no Vincente Minnelli, yet it is an important film for at least two reasons. Its location footage challenges the misconception that On the Town (1949) was the first musical to include footage shot outside the studio. And, like all the other films discussed here, it contributed to the evolution of MGM’s unique style of musical; Singin’ in the Rain did not spring unheralded from Gene Kelly’s muscular loins.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer entered the world of feature-length musicals first and to great effect: The Broadway Melody (1929) pushed across the edges of what was believed achievable with the new talking pictures and won the Oscar for best picture for its trouble.
