June Moon (1931)

Director:

A. Edward Sutherland

Writers:

George S. Kaufman (play)
Ring Lardner (play)

Release Date:

21 March 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Aspiring lyricist Fred Stevens leaves Schenectady for New York City, with hopes of making it big in the songwriting business. |

Plot Keywords:

Based On Play

Cast

Jack Oakie	...	Frederick Martin Stevens
Frances Dee	...	Edna Baker
Wynne Gibson	...	Lucille Sears
Harry Akst	...	Maxie Schwartz
June MacCloy	...	Eileen Fletcher
Ernest Wood	...	Paul Sears
Harold Waldridge	...	Young Goebel
Sam Hardy	...	Sam Hart
Ethel Kenyon	...	Goldie (as Ethel Sutherland)
Frank Darien	...	Window Cleaner
Jean Laverty	...	Miss Rixey (as Jean Barry)
Eddie Dunn	...	Joe McCloskey

Also Known As:

Night Life (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. However, because of legal complications, this particular title was not included in the original television package and may not have ever been televised.

Quotes:

Maxie Schwartz: If songwriters always wrote about their home state, what a big Jewish population Tennessee must have.

Movie Connections:

Version of Blonde Trouble (1937)

Invaluable, but not perfect

The other reviewers here condescend to this film, making a great deal out of the changes that Paramount made in the original play. Yes, the changes are a shame, but eventually all the textual quibbling is beside the point.

The main thing is that this movie has something the 1974 all-star revival doesn't have - laughs. Contemporary actors can bring all sorts of wonderful professionalism to a script like this, but they can't deliver the lines, not a one of them. The tone is never right.

In revivals of comedy of the 20s and 3os, today's actors always appear like tourists from another planet. Either the characters are made too real, in which case they're sunk by acting out of Freud and the Method, or they're brittle caricatures seen from outside and above, in which case we don't care about the characters and the dialog just lays there. Jack Oakie miscast can do something no living performer can, and that's make this kind of writing live.

Wynne Gibson, whom you probably don't know, can ignite these wisecracks and convulse an audience. Estelle Parsons, whom you should know as an awesome actress with a phenomenal resume, in 1974 couldn't make anything more than a damp fizzle with the same lines, and it may have more to do with cultural changes over time than any personal fault.

Harry Akst, composer of "Baby Face," "Dinah," and "Am I Blue?" puts in a phenomenal appearance as Max, doing Oscar Levant's shtick a dozen years before Oscar Levant did, and with infinitely more grace and charm.

There are finer film comedies out there, and more respectful screen adaptations of Broadway shows, but every single person in this film is funnier than his or her counterpart in the 1974 revival, and in this material, that's crucial.