Busby Berkeley, the musical staging genius behind 42nd Street and the Gold Diggers series, bid farewell to his original Warner Bros. contract in swingin’ style with tunes by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer. Now that’s Golden Age name-dropping. The story is a breezy bit of show-biz romance set at the title nightclub, a chi-chi spot where the owner (Pat O’Brien) and the bandleader (screen-debuting John Payne) spar over everything from chewing gum to the club’s pretty flack (Margaret Lindsay). Of course, the real story is the music and Garden of the Moon barely catches its breath between songs, including the cheery Love Is Where You Find It and the playful, scat-singin’ wit of The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish.
