· · ·
turning to page one
turning to page one
BLUE MOON · written by Robert Kaplow · 2025
Scene 26 of 26 · ≈ 5 min on screen · Last scene of act three
On the opening night of Oklahoma!, lyricist Lorenz Hart drinks through Sardi's while chasing one last renewal with Richard Rodgers and the young woman he adores, but both are already moving beyond him.
Hart leaves the show that displaced him for his Sardi's habitat, where wit and remembered greatness keep fear at bay.
Hart needs Elizabeth to choose him and Rodgers to need him, while drink offers the quicker form of consolation.
He admits White into his private mythology and steps into the Oklahoma! celebration to confront the people he cannot keep.
Hart pitches a grand future, hunts for artistic validation, and retreats through drink and old stories when Rodgers resists.
Hart gets Rodgers' love and the offer of a small reunion, along with the unsparing terms that make it impossible for him.
He pays for the truth: White has left, Elizabeth loves Cooper, and her love for Hart is gratitude rather than desire.
Hart performs generosity one last time, introduces Elizabeth to Rodgers, and sends them out together.
Hammerstein honors Hart as the lyricist who liberated American song, but his precocious young protégé punctures the eulogy by calling Hart's work sloppy.
In the coat room, Elizabeth recounts Cooper's rejection, tells Hart she loves him only with respect and gratitude, and raises her mother's belief that his deepest desire is for men.
Hart introduces Elizabeth to Rodgers; she rhapsodizes over Oklahoma!, accepts Rodgers' invitation, and leaves on his arm while Hart masks the loss with his own lyric.
This scene
Rodgers and Elizabeth have left through the front door. The friends and well-wishers are leaving, too. Hart moves back into the main bar. He's still got the bag of presents he never gave her; he's staring at the vanished Rodgers and Elizabeth.
HART
(to Eddie)
You ever meet someone, and you know, instantly, that both your lives are going to be irretrievably altered?
EDDIE
(doing Casablanca)
Just as I suspected! You are a sentimentalist!
HART
When do you get off work?
EDDIE
I got to lock this joint up.
HART
What about you, Knuckles, you're done here, right?
MORTY RIFKIN
Not yet.
HART
'Cause, I am throwing an enormous party at my place tonight. I forgot to give her the presents....
Goes to pick up bag of presents, coat, and hat, but fumbles it all, spilling his deck of cards on the floor. He slowly goes to the floor and slowly starts picking up all the cards.
HART (CONT'D)
I'm having such trouble with sleeves recently. I have arthritis in this shoulder. I'm going to have to start wearing a cloak. I mean it. Single-handedly, I'm going to bring back the cloak. You're going to see me on opening nights with a top hat and a cloak, flitting through the fog with a silver-tipped cane. You boys are coming tonight, right? She's going to be there. I'm telling you. She will.
He is largely talking to himself now as he continues to pick up the cards.
HART (CONT'D)
She'll arrive late. And--get this, 'cause this is the remarkable part--sometime late, maybe, around five AM, after a little too much malbec, she's going to turn to me and say, "Hey, Larry, what are you reading?" "Hey, Larry, when's your birthday?" For the first time in her life she's going to be interested in me. It has to happen sometime, right? All the other guys have disappointed her. But I never will.
He's now on his feet, about to leave.
HART (CONT'D)
I'm just...
(conjures a Shakespearean
pun out of thin air)
...a little touch of Larry in the night!
Knuckles! Some travellin' music!
Morty plays and sings "Blue Moon."
MORTY RIFKIN
"Blue moon,
You saw me standing alone."
HART
Wise guy.
MORTY RIFKIN
"Without a dream in my heart,
Without a love of my own."
Hart shakes his head in amused exasperation.
HART
Well, it's a helluva lot better than "The Surrey With the Fucking Fringe On Top."
People are still leaving Sardi's in little groups. Langner and a few friends are walking by.
LANGNER
Larry, you coming uptown to Dick's with us?
HART
You go on ahead – I'll be up there later.
He hears Morty singing another verse, joined in by Renee from the coat room, as he stands there, deciding if he will leave for Rodgers' party or stay and continue his drinking.
MORTY RIFKIN
(sings)
"Blue Moon,
You knew just what I was there
for."
MORTY RIFKIN/RENEE CARROLL (sings) "You heard me saying a prayer for, Someone I really could care for."
Takes a step towards the bar.
HART
That's not bad. Triple feminine rhymes. And they all make sense.
He takes one last glance towards the exiting last few. It's a decisive moment. He turns and sees Eddie at the bar, singing along with Morty. As he walks towards him, Eddie, resigned to Larry's decision, pulls out two bigger glasses and pours them drinks.
MORTY RIFKIN/CIGARETTE GIRL (sings) "And then there suddenly appeared before me, The only one my arms will ever hold, And I heard somebody whisper, 'Please adore me.'"
MORTY RIFKIN
(sings)
"And when I looked, the moon had
turned to gold.
Blue moon."
EDDIE
Larry, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Hart looks at him with sad amusement.
HART
"Isn't it romantic?"
EDDIE
Not really, no.
They share their drink in friendship. As the camera slowly drifts away from them, Larry starts telling a story to both Morty and Eddie.
HART
You know, it wasn't even supposed to be called "Blue Moon." I called it "The Bad in Every Man." We wrote it for this movie Manhattan Melodrama.
HART (CONT'D)
Jack Robbins, formerly Rabinowitz-- he had his name circumcised-- over at MGM, he hears the song; he calls us into his office, he lowers his pastrami, says: "Dick, I love the melody. Strong as anything you've ever written. But Larry those words! They're too artsy- fartsy! They're not too artsy-fartsy for me. I know how brilliant you guys are. But you have to write for the schmucks in the dark... Nobody's gonna sing that lyric." So I said what's wrong with it? He said "I can't even remember the fucking title! Boys, give me something I can promote." So I say, what do you want me to call it, Blue Moon? Punchline, biggest hit we ever wrote.
Closing song, "This Funny World" begins.
The camera pans across a row of caricatures on the wall, eventually finding Rodgers and Hammerstein.
SUPER: Rodgers and Hammerstein went on to become the most successful songwriting team in American musical theater history.
The camera pans, in another part of the room, slowly coming to rest on Hart's image.
Lorenz Hart did, in fact, contribute five new songs to the revival of A Connecticut Yankee before being found paralyzed in a drunken stupor, sitting in the rain on a curb near 8th avenue. He died four days later at Doctor's Hospital during an air-raid blackout.
Closing credits begin...