THE MOON IS BLUE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 764, 12 March 1954, Page 20

THE MOON IS BLUE

(Preminget-Herbert-United Artists)

talk about indecency, in the United States last year, The Moon is Blue has the wittiest, most amusing script I’ve listened to for agés;. and. if I say that a hard-to-please colleague who had read the play responded to the film quite as readily as I* did you'll realise that it is also put across rather more than competently. This is the sort of film, in fact, that (like the events it portrays) turns up only once.in a blue moon. The Moon is Blue, which-is adapted from the F. Hugh Herbert play and directed by Otto Preminger, is a comedy about sex. It is set almost entirely in a living room, and the action leads to nothing more torrid than a mild kiss or two and one undeserved black eye. A young architect, Donald’ Gresham (William Holden), "picks up" a young gir!, Patty O’Nei!ll (Maggie McNamara) and takes her to his flat, where she cooks dinner for him and for an unexpected visitor, David Slater (David Niven), the father of Don’s jilted girl friend, Cynthia (Dawn Addams). Don is the sort cause of an awful lot of

of fellow who admits, when Patty asks him, that he might try to seduce her, but is prepared to promise not to. Patty is the sort of girl who asks such questions, in a way that quite disarms both Don and the charming but dissipated David. Her defence is that it’s better to be preoccupied than occupied with sex. "Tll be damned if I know," says Dan, "if you’re just incredibly naive or whether you're ribbing me," and while I suppose naive must be the word for it, it seemed to me at times not quite the word. Miss McNamara, a newcomer to films, plays Patty in the most engaging fashion, with Mr. Holden and Mr. Niven doing excellently opposite her. This is a film for adults and particu-larly-date I say it?-for civilised adults. That much understood, I can’t for the life of. me see what all the fuss is about. For in spite of such naughty words as seduction, virgin and pregnant, there wasn’t'a mouthful I found nasty in the whole delicious confection.