#012: Montana Moon

MONTANA MOON

Release Date

March 20, 1930

History

Known as the first cowboy musical, Montana Moon was also the first musical for actress Joan Crawford, minus a cameo where she played herself in Hollywood Revue. She would star in a handful of other musicals in her career including Dancing Lady, Ice Follies of 1939, and Torch Song. The film reunited Crawford with star John Mack Brown, who co-starred with her two years earlier in the synchronized sound film Our Dancing Daughters, giving audiences a treat to see the two now paired up in a film with dialogue. 

Established with a repertoire of silent films, Malcom St. Clair directed Montana Moon, starting a new phase in his career directing sound films. But he'd also be facing a new obstacle in directing the picture-- the newly formed Production Code, which was enforced in 1930. While not as strict as the 1934 Hayes Code and these films still contained suggestive 'Pre-Code Cinema' moments, suddenly studios were faced with challenges in getting their films approved for audiences, as details such as drinking (the country was still under prohibition), "scenes of passion", and anything deemed "vulgar" would now be considered too risqué for audiences and would need to be cut or reshot with milder footage. Montana Moon suffered greatly from this and as a result the film required extensive reshooting.

While much of the the film was shot in Montana, unheard of at a time when directors would shoot in California, there were still scenes shot in California cities Chatsworth and Idyllwild. 

Review

The plot for Montana Moon may be paper thin, but it is enough for a charming 90 minutes. Crawford plays Joan Prescott, a woman who is known for catching men's eyes easily. When her sister Lizzie asks Joan to not take the attention away from Jeff, the man Lizzie loves, Joan obliges but finds it hard to keep her end of the deal when Jeff is already in love with her and tries to make the moves on her behind Lizzie's back. Loyal to her sister, Joan decides to get off at the next train station in a desolate town in Montana, and there she falls for Larry, a rancher. It turns out that the ranch the town is on belongs to Joan's father and Larry is his employee. However, Larry and Joan fall in love, spend a few weeks together on the ranch, and marry. They return to the ranch and are accepted by Joan's father and the rest of the upper class family. However, adjusting to this new life is difficult for the couple who both come from different economic backgrounds, and conflict ensues.

Crawford steals the show in this film, from her first appearance. Her character's father and sister are waiting for her to arrive before she misses the train and she runs onto it at the last minute before it pulls out of the station. I have mentioned several times in this blog that my pet peeve is actors yelling their lines, and this was the first time I felt that none of the actors were doing it for the entire 90 minutes of the film. Crawford, especially, is a natural in this film with every action she takes. She brings a layer of subtlety in her performance that had yet to be seen in sound cinema at that point: the way she whispers to Jeff to leave her alone when he sneaks into her cabin, or how she flirts with the train station employee to have him hold her bag, and even her interactions with Larry when they first meet and spend the night together in the desert.

Her character is very progressive and seductive in this film. Usually at this point in romantic comedies, if a character was faking an identity with a member of the opposite sex, it was generally the man doing it to the woman he was interested in, but here the roles are reversed. Larry tells Joan (who he only knows as "Montana") that he hears the Prescott girls are spoiled and that he'd take them over his knee if he met one, so she plays along. It was a pity that we as the audience didn't see the moment when Larry finds out she is a Prescott. A few scenes later, it's revealed in an unclimactic way that he knows who she is in their love affair and that she needs to return home. Two other moments worth noting from Crawford's performance are a shot of her smoking a cigarette as she lays against a rock, telling Larry that she's going to sleep at the campfire with him (a Pre-Code moment, having the two sleeping so close to each other), as well as the scene where she tells her father that she and Larry had gotten married. Overall, I was so impressed with her ability to do something as simple as take off her husband's cowboy boots on their wedding night and make it a cute and endearing moment.

As previously mentioned, other actors do a great job as well. Lloyd Ingraham as John, Joan's father, gives a wonderful performance of a man who likes to give off the impression he's tough as nails but is actually very soft and warm underneath. Brown, as Larry, gives a great subtle performance as well, as a masculine but gentle cowboy. So many actors in the films I've been writing about thus far are either incredibly gruff or full-on dandies, but Brown's performance stands out as not going to either extreme. He has great comedic timing in scenes such as when Joan tells John she and Larry have married. Then we see a layered performance of a man who is being pushed on what he will and won't tolerate in his marriage as the clash between him and Joan begin. 

This clash of culture between Joan and Larry is one that is still relative today, as well as the conflict between single life vs. domesticity. Larry wants to go to bed after a long day on their wedding night, whereas she wants to go to a party that her sister and friends have thrown for her and Larry at the last minute. He doesn't want to go but tells her to go without him, after which she decides to come home at 6am. While playing her character obviously drunk was not allowed, Crawford is able to subtly hint that she has been up all night drinking with her friends, which starts a road of conflict between the two. Larry gets ready to go to work, and Joan says that he doesn't have to do that anymore because her father will take care of them. Things come to a head when Jeff, who is still trying to seduce Joan, tells Larry to 'play the field' and that everyone is doing it, at which point Larry notices Joan playing dice with men at the party and being serenaded by his cowboy friends at the party. Joan gets so angry at Larry for trying to control her that she dances with Jeff. Jeff kisses her, Larry punches him out, and Joan and Larry have it out before separating. A touching scene follows where John asks Larry to reconcile with Joan before they head back to New York.

Supporting cast members Cliff Edwards (aka "Ukelele Ike") and Benny Rubin reappear in this film and are once again as wonderful as they usually are. It's always nice to see the two of them together in a film because their comedic timing is great. Edwards plays Froggy, Larry's sidekick cowboy, who is portrayed as a simpleton. While it's clear his character is neurodivergent and there are some jokes made at his expense, he's still very funny and not over the top, which makes the character not seem as offensive as you'd think. Froggy sings a few songs in the film as well. Rubin plays Dr. Bloom, a traveling medicine man from the Bronx, but it's unclear if this is a ruse because he's wearing a cowboy hat and traveling with the roundup gang the next time we see him. I imagine, like Larry learning Joan's identity, this was a plot hole that was lost in editing.

There were some other small issues with the film that bothered me. For example, while all of the songs are great, such as Edwards on "Trailin' in Old Montana" and "The Moon is Low", it was annoying that the first song isn't until 30 minutes into the film, and it takes another twenty or so minutes before we get the rest of the numbers of the film. Generally, musicals suffer from the other problem, like Newsies, where the majority of the numbers are at the beginning of the film, but it's better to have them scattered throughout a musical. There are also issues with film exposure, like in this scene, where it is very dark and you can't make out the characters, but then later during their 'wedding night' scene, it's very obviously daylight. A printing filter to darken the frame or a blue tint could have easily fixed this. Still, the on location shots were very gorgeous and any issues in regards to exposure could be forgiven for this reason.

There were some Pre-code elements to the film that raised my eyebrows, even with all of the censorship that the film allegedly faced, mostly in the first scene between Larry and Joan. When she walks into his camp and in a jest manner pretends she is walking into his living room and is sitting on a luxurious couch (which is really a rock), she exclaims that she can't remember when a chair made such an impression on her and he retorts "That chair ain't nothing. I wish you could see my bed sometime," a sleazy come-on if ever there was one. Additionally, when she insists that she will be spending the night at the camp with him, he digs a hole for her to use as a bathroom, and when she asks what it is for, he is about to use the word before she interrupts him. Talking about going to the bathroom is something that was very taboo in the cinema world.

Two other moments that were quite racy were when Larry, in the same farewell scene, admits that Joan has him all "juggled up" and she responds that he makes her get "juggled up too" before pleading with him: "Come on, give in will you?" He gives her a nervous look and they embrace before there is a fade to black. If ever there was a scene that was going to suggest two characters are about to know each other Biblically, this would be it. But the moment that stood out the most as risqué and was also the funniest scene in the film was when Larry and Joan spend their wedding night with the cowboys, and the cowboys keep trying to catch a glimpse of the two of them about to have sex. Larry, annoyed, finally pretends to go to his own sleeping area so the cowboys will stop looking, and after a few moments comes back to Joan so they finally can have a proper wedding night together.

All in all, this film is a Pre-Code delight that is refreshing for its time, in script, in acting, and in its beautiful scenic shots of the Montana countryside.

Home Video

Montana Moon was a Warner Archive release from 2014, and looks and sounds wonderful. There are a few moments where there is heavy hiss from the source material, and sometimes there is a jarring difference between the fidelity of a song vs the dialogue, but overall this film looks and sounds great. It is also the first film in this series that while only available on the Warner Archive line for a physical release, also happens to be available on streaming on Amazon Prime using the same restoration.