IncaWelCar In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

morrison-dylan-fan Searching around on Amazon Uk for titles that have come out on the Warner Archives DVD label,I was happy to stumble upon a Comedy directed by Otto Preminger,who I had heard about for the first time,thanks to the excellent Film Noir Bunny Lake Is Missing.Talking to my dad and a friend,I was surprised to hear both of them give me the same response when I mentioned the title to them,with each of them saying the movie inspired "That M.A.S.H. episode!",which led to me deciding,that it would be a good time to find out how blue the moon really is.The plot:Taking a break from his work as a building designer in an office based in the Empire State building by doing some window shopping,Donald Gresham notices a very pretty girl called Patty O'Neill,who is also window shopping at a store near by.Keeping an eye on O'Neill, Gresham is pleased to see Patty head to the Empire State building.Deciding to go up and talk to O'Neill,Gresham is relived to find out that Patty is very easy going,and soon starts to arrange for O'Neill to come along with him to his apartment,so that Donald can cook a meal for both of them.Walking into the tower block that Gresham is based in,Donald accidentally shows Patty that his last relationship ended less than mutually,when they both come face to face with the less than welcoming face of his ex-girlfriend Cynthia Slater.Moving O'Neill as quickly on from meeting his ex as Gresham is possible to do,Donald welcomes Patty into his lush apartment.Discoveing that there is no food at all in the fridge,Gresham decides to go to the local shop to pick up some good,whilst O'Neill makes herself comfortable.10 Minutes later:Hearing a knock on the door,O'Neill rushes to the door,excited about finding out what Gresham has picked up.Sadly for Patty,instead of finding Donald standing at the door,O'Neill finds a man who claims to be Cynthia Slater's dad.View on the film:Transferred from its stage origins, (for which he had also been a producer on) director Otto Preminger disappointingly shows an inability to break the movie out of its stage confines,due to Preminger making the limited number of locations that the film takes place be ones that feel confined and closed off,with Preminger only showing a stylish eye in his directing for the appearances of Cynthia Slater, (played by an alluring Dawn Addams)who thanks to distinctively dressing all in black,is shown by Preminger as an icy Femme Fatale.Whilst Otto Preminger shows a limitation in his directing of this adaptation,writer Hugh Herbert shows an impressive amount of skill in adapting his own play,thanks to giving the screenplay a wonderful snappy pace that has each of the character's talking over one another,and hitting each with huge,screwball Comedy gum-balls,which also allows Herbert to cleverly give each of the character's gender-reversing personality's.Bravely playing against the roles that they were meant to,due to the Hays Code still being enforced,each of the lead actors give fantastic performances that wittingly mess with (at the time) audiences expectations on how men and women should behave in films,with Maggie McNamara (who died from a suicide age 48 in 1978,and is tragically buried in an unmarked grave) giving a delightful performance as Patty O'Neill,thanks to McNamara delivering Herbert's sharp dialogue of questioning Donald and Slater's dad bedroom activates with a real Comedy relish.Contrasting the frank & brash McNamara,William Holden and David Niven each give terrific performances,with Niven showing Slater's dad to be someone who fears that he may be getting pushed to the side as a "washed up" playboy by a whip-smart O"Neill,whilst William Holden shows Donald's reservations in meeting his match in Patty O'Neill,which soon leads to all of the character's finding out how blue the moon really is.

moonspinner55 A sex comedy in which the laughs allegedly derive from the fact that nobody gets any. Four-character, two-set play about an unmarried New York City architect who becomes inexplicably smitten with a brightly-dotty would-be actress whom he meets at the top of the Empire State Building; he takes her back to his place for a drink (not a seduction!), where they run into the playboy-father of the architect's ex-fiancée. Producer-director Otto Preminger, working from F. Hugh Herbert's adaptation of his Broadway success (which Preminger presented on the stage), obviously had faith in this material, but it's far too flimsy to work up a head of comedic steam. William Holden gives the scenario more charm and panache than it deserves, while David Niven (as Holden's potential father-in-law?) is miscast. Oscar-nominated Maggie McNamara portrays the insipidly-named Patty O'Neill--an inquisitive Irish gal from Brooklyn who knows the facts of life--as if she were auditioning for the 'kooky neighbor' spot on "Guiding Light". *1/2 from ****

Jimmy L. THE MOON IS BLUE is a comedy based on a stage play about the kooky happenings one evening when a playboy bachelor brings an innocent young woman back to his apartment for dinner.This racy comedy never earned a Production Code certification. It was very controversial in the 1950s for its frankness about sex and its use of taboo words like "virgin", "mistress", and "pregnant". It's nothing outrageous by modern-day standards, but it is noticeably up-front for '50s Hollywood.The hijinks involves four characters: an architect bachelor (William Holden), a frank young woman (Maggie McNamara), the witty upstairs neighbor (David Niven), and his daughter, the architect's jilted ex (Dawn Addams). Both men find themselves strangely attracted to the girl, who bewilders them with her bluntness and honesty. The night is filled with misunderstandings and screwy surprises. It's a fun film, though stagey.William Holden and David Niven bring A-list talent to the production, and neither disappoints. It's actually pretty cool to see their different styles on display in the same scene. The ever-smooth Holden, with his rain coat and masculine virility, and the delightfully witty Niven, with his proper grammar and trimmed mustache.David Niven is by far my favorite thing about this movie. He is hilarious in his role as the ineffectual father of Holden's quasi-psychotic ex-girlfriend. He comes downstairs to Holden's apartment because his daughter has told him that Holden had "done her wrong". Holden defends himself, explaining that she'd spent the night in his bedroom while he slept on the couch. Niven ponders the situation and decides that maybe that *was* how Holden had "wronged" her. ("A very humiliating experience. I probably should beat you up anyway.") His comedic reactions throughout the film are great. Never far from a cocktail and never at a loss for an eloquent witticism, Niven's at the top of his game here.I saw this rare film on TCM and the print was pretty poor. Aside from the dirty image quality, there were several abrupt cuts (missing frames/footage?) and even inconsistent audio levels. I guess this film wasn't taken very good care of over the decades. Still, the print is certainly watchable and the movie is an interesting piece of Hollywood history. And there are some real laughs, too.

RanchoTuVu You'll never know who these people really are in this movie. They have no background. They just appear in the Empire State Building in order to get the story rolling. And roll it does. It's a very superficial, pretty inconsequential, and funny comedy. Who cares who the characters are or were, anyway? The thing most important is physical and sexual and all the jockeying that goes on before the relationship reaches that point. It turns out to be a comedy-writer's paradise. Of course in the end they will get married to at least throw a bone to social mores. Holden is near top form and Niven, as his older upstairs neighbor whose daughter was Holden's girlfriend, is classic.