Montana Moon (1930)
** (out of 4)
Incredibly uneven film about a rich brat (Joan Crawford) who gets off the train she's on after feeling guilty for messing with a man (Ricardo Cortez) that her best friend is in love with. Once off the train she finds herself in a small town where she meets cowboy Larry (Johnny Mack Brown) and the two quickly fall in love and marry but it doesn't take long for her desire for her "other life" to destroy the current relationship. MONTANA MOON is without question one of the most uneven movies that I've ever seen from this period of Hollywood. For the life of me it seemed like someone was carrying the screenplay but ran into someone else carrying a different screenplay and the two scripts just got mixed together. For starters, there are so many different genres being tried here and very few of them work. You've got the actual romance between Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown and this here actually does work and especially their "falling in love" scenes early in the picture. What does work are some really bad musical numbers that are thrown in as well as some comedy from Benny Rubin and Cliff Edwards. I know early talkies wanted to give people everything in regards to drama, music and laughs but it makes for such an uneven ride here that the entire movie just takes on a rather weird vibe. What keeps the movie slightly entertaining are the performances. Crawford is absolutely gorgeous here and manages to make you really hate her character at times and love her at others. I thought she was really good early on when she was the bad girl but once she meets the cowboy, I also believed the way she fell in love like a little girl. Johnny, on the other hand, is fairly good, although I'm not sure if some of his awkward line deliveries were a part of his character or just him struggling with the part. Either way, the two of them made for a great couple. Cortez is the typical punk that he always played but it was nice seeing him. MONTANA MOON isn't a film most are going to enjoy but if you're a fan of Crawford then it's worth sitting through once.
