Saturday, June 18, 2011

Joyce in Sitting on the Moon (1936)



1936's Sitting on the Moon is one of several "poverty row" genre films Joyce Compton made a small contribution to. A brief and airy musical, Sitting chronicles the star-crossed romance of songwriter Roger Pryor and appealing singer Grace Bradley. Bradley's career is on the outs when Pryor pens a jaunty melody for her (the title tune, repeated ad nauseam) which lands the woman a featured vocalist gig on a top radio hour. She becomes a star while he lands in obscurity, until another song and complications involving a gold-digging hussy (Joyce Compton!) change things around for the hapless guy. On the whole, slight and forgettable stuff which benefits from nice Art Deco production design and a pleasing title tune.

It's interesting to note that this is one of the earliest productions for Republic Pictures. Along with sister companies Monogram and PRC, Republic would become the source for several eclectic parts Joyce would do throughout the '40s. Sitting on the Moon is typical: Joyce appears for only a few minutes as the seductive blonde who is eventually revealed as the secret wife of Roger Pryor (pictured above). How will he get out of this one?

Sitting on the Moon is one of those easily available movies that seem to appear on every vintage musical DVD set in existence. It's also viewable online at Archive.org. In 2009, Alpha Home Video issued the film as the bottom half of a musical double feature DVD, paired with Rhythm in the Clouds (another poverty row film with an appearance by Joyce!). Buy at Amazon here.

2 comments:

  1. I love this movie, Grace Bradley is one of my favorites. I think Grace and Joyce could have made a good team like in the movies Glenda Farrell and Joan Blondell did.

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  2. Grace was really cute, wasn't she? Apparently she didn't make too many movies before marrying Bill "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd.

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