Metropolitan opera star Grace Moore's second movie vehicle was the 1930 adaptation of the Oscar Hammerstein II-Sigmund Romberg operetta New Moon. On this occasion, Moore was teamed with another "Met" alumnus, baritone Lawrence Tibbertt. The stars are cast respectively as Tanya Strogoff, a White Russian princess slated to marry a man she does not love, and Michael Petroff, the handsome lieutenant whom she does love. The jilted fiance, Governor Boris Brusiloff (Adolphe Menjou) vows revenge, leading to a bloody military engagement in which even comedy-relief character Potkin (Gus Shy) is killed. Nonetheless, both hero and heroine live to love and sing again. The fact that the original operetta was set in 18th-century New Orleans rather than pre-Revolutionary Russia did not stop the screenwriters from utilizing most of the plot devices from the 1928 stage version. Likewise left intact were many of the timeless Hammerstein-Romberg tunes, including "Lover Come Back to Me" and "Stout-Hearted Men." Despite its Slavic setting, New Moon was retitled Parisian Belle for television, to avoid confusion with the 1940 Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald remake.
