IMDb plot summary: Wall Street wizard Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails laced with a "love potion," work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels that he has also lost his girl.
Directed by Edmund Goulding. Starring Douglas Fairbanks, Bebe Daniels, and Edward Everett Horton.
Reaching for the Moon is a 1930 romance about a wealthy man falling in love on a cruise. That's... about all I can tell you, because this movie has not survived well. And I mean that in the sense that apparently most surviving versions of this movie are just over 60 minutes, roughly 2/3 of its original runtime. I'd like to blame the general aimlessness and awkwardness of the plot on that, because there are some good moments. Douglas Fairbanks as our lead makes the most of his physicality, jumping and leaping around the space, often for no apparent reason at all but it's engaging nonetheless. We also get one song performed by a very young Bing Crosby -- apparently this was originally a musical but most got cut as musicals became less popular. But as a romance or, really, narrative of any kind, the story is thin and confusing. It definitely seems to be missing large portions that would help us connect the dots on the plot and characterization. Of course, it's possible that the 30 cut minutes didn't elaborate on that any further, but I'd like to give this film the benefit of the doubt, so I'll pretend that half hour would fix everything.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Reaching for the Moon < Hairspray (1988)
Reaching for the Moon > The Little Princess (1939)
Reaching for the Moon < Satantango
Reaching for the Moon < *batteries not included
Reaching for the Moon < Mulholland Dr.
Reaching for the Moon > Sex Tape
Reaching for the Moon > Baby Boom
Reaching for the Moon > When Strangers Click
Reaching for the Moon > The Iceman
Reaching for the Moon < Before I Fall
Reaching for the Moon < Show Boat (1951)
Reaching for the Moon > We're No Angels
Final spot: #2652 out of 3682, or 28%.
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