Reaching for the Moon

Reaching for the Moon (1930)

What excitement! What novelty! What modern day splendor. Fairbanks in a three-mile-a-minute comedy-drama.

Wall Street wizard Larry Day, new to the ways of love and coached by his valet, follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails, laced with a 'love potion', work their magic.

Date of release
1930-12-29
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (14)
Runtime
1h 13m
Genres
Comedy, Music, Romance
Director
Edmund Goulding

Casting

Interesting facts

Reaching for the Moon is a 1930 American pre-Code black and white musical film. Originally released at 91 minutes; surviving versions are usually cut to 62 minutes. A 74-minute version aired in 1998 on AMC. The DVD version runs just under 72 minutes. The film's working title was Lucky Break and is known as Para alcanzar la Luna in Spain. It is not to be confused with the 1917 Fairbanks silent film Reaching for the Moon.

Background

The film was originally intended to be a musical with songs written by Irving Berlin but problems soon developed. From the start, Berlin found Edmund Goulding, the director, difficult to work with. Also by mid-1930 the studio realized that the public's demand for musicals had disappeared. So Goulding jettisoned many of Berlin's songs from the score.

The one song that was retained was "When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down" introduced by Bing Crosby who had filmed it late at night after completing his work at the Cocoanut Grove.

Variety commented on this song specifically, saying: "None of the Berlin songs is left other than a chorus of hot numbers apparently named "Lower Than Lowdown" [sic]. Tune suddenly breaks into the running in the ship's bar when Bing Crosby, of the Whiteman Rhythm Boys, gives it a strong start for just a chorus which, in turn, is ably picked up by Miss Daniels, also for merely a chorus, and then in an exterior shot to the deck where June MacCloy s…

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