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This early Joan Crawford vehicle is a very uneven production, primarily due to the dialogue. Johnny Mack Brown reads the script like a high school thespian. Though Crawford's performance is nothing to write home about either, one wonders how much better this production might have been if Brown had been able to portray his character in a convincing fashion.

The best part of this film is the music. There are range ballads sung by a competent male chorus, and some pleasant (though somewhat out of place) solos by Cliff Edwards (aka the voice of Jiminy Cricket) and his ukulele.

But the plot is too simplistic and predictable. The characters are mostly caricatures. And the action is uneven.

Still, this film has some interest for its use of Crawford.

High society gal Crawford falls for aw-shucks ranch-hand Brown in a somewhat predictable, but well-played, romance-cum-morality play. Crawford even sings a Broadway-flavored trail ballad, and while she is certainly no Jeanette Macdonald (one was enough!), she does a creditable job with the material she has to work with. She and Brown both play their roles to their respective hilts, and provide intriguing insights into America's pre-Code morals as depicted by Hollywood. Not to be missed: excellent comedy cameos by Cliff Edwards (later famed as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney's animated classic "Pinocchio") and Benny Rubin (a teasingly fey Yiddish fella). Well worth a look-see!

Montana Moon finds Joan Crawford and Dorothy Sebastian as the Presscott Sisters who apparently never mix with the hired help on the father's ranch in Montana. To use the term of the day, the two are a pair of hard living flappers. Joan is partying hearty with Ricardo Cortez though the one that really likes him is Sebastian.

The two are on their way back with dad Lloyd Ingraham to the ranch when Joan decides she isn't going to stay in dull old Montana, she's changing trains for the next eastbound one they have. But wandering off from the station for a bit, she runs into cowboy Johnny Mack Brown who as it happens works for her father.

Brown had an interesting career he was a football star for his native University of Alabama, an All American long before Bear Bryant came on the scene and was snapped up by Hollywood during the silent Twenties. That southern drawl insured he'd be cast in westerns like Montana Moon and soon he was doing them almost exclusively as he became a B picture cowboy hero and worked pretty steadily.

Anyway the rest of Montana Moon concerns Joan and Johnny's rocky road to romance and the two lifestyles not blending real well, especially after Ricardo Cortez gets back in the picture.

Cliff Edwards and Benny Rubin play an interesting pair of sidekicks and silent Danish comedian Karl Dane is also a ranch cowboy with very little dialog. He did not transition well to sound and Louis B. Mayer was letting him fill out his contract with a bit part with few words. In four years Dane would be dead by suicide.

Not a great film in the collected works of Joan Crawford. But Montana Moon was a typical Crawford party girl role that she did before MGM discovered she could act.

Crawford's second starring role in a talkie is a mix of her willful character from OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS but set on a Montana ranch with singing cowboys.

To escape lecherous Ricardo Cortez, Crawford bails off a train in Montana and meets up with Johnny Mack Brown. They instantly fall in love and get married. But it turns out the ranch he works for is owned by her father. Worse, Crawford's whole "crew" of young friends is at the ranch for an extended weekend party. Will Cortez win Crawford? Will Brown mix with the society friends? Typical plot for the era but with dialog and songs. The acting isn't great but both Brown and Crawford are very likable here, early in their long movie careers. Cortez is OK. Dorothy Sebastian is the sister in love with Cortez. And MGM regulars Karl Dane, Cliff Edwards, and Benny Rubin play cowboys.

Crawford and Edwards sings a few songs, including "The Moon Is Low."

Joan Crawford is modern, funny, loose and just plain terrific. She plays comedy with great finesse and there are many funny moments. A pre-code film with lots of low costumes and suggestive language. Johnny Mack Brown gives a rather stodgy, wooden performance as Joan's cowboy love. Ricardo Cortez plays the suave charmer aiming to reclaim his love. This 1929 film is well photographed with use of train miniatures and real people, with on ___location shots mixed with a few painted backdrops. But it's 1929...the depression and this movie is still an audience pleaser. Joan dances and sings...and really not bad at all. WORTH A LOOK!