New Orleans is perhaps most frequently associated with Mardi Gras. Although this originally Catholic holiday is celebrated around the world, the famous customs and revelry of Carnival time in “The Big Easy” make it Louisiana’s event of the year.
“New Moon,” the 1940 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical based on Sigmund Romberg’s operetta of the same name, is no exception. Starring “America’s Singing Sweethearts” Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, this film is a costume drama set in French colonial Louisiana. Although none of the scenes happen in France, the story takes place during the French Revolution.
Charles (Nelson Eddy) and Marianne de Beaumanoir (Jeanette MacDonald) on an island in “New Moon.” (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy were one of the most popular screen couples in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Between 1935 and 1942, they made eight musicals together, of which “New Moon” was their sixth. It wasn’t their first foray into Southern history, as their first collaboration, “Naughty Marietta,” was also set in colonial Louisiana. It was their third movie with music by Sigmund Romberg, whose classical yet sentimental music suited their operatic singing styles….