Time Out for Rhythm (1941)

Movie Info

I bet I’m the worse actor!

Danny Collins (Rudy Vallée) hopes to create a big musical career with his new partner Richard Lane).  As their fame rises, trouble strikes when Mike learns Frances Lewis (Rosemary Lane) is single again.  Danny questions Frances’ motives which creates a wedge between Mike and Danny.  A young songstress named Kitty Brown (Ann Miller) might have the talent that Danny needs…but to get Mike to get it done!

Directed by Sidney Salkow, Time Out for Rhythm is a musical comedy.  The film features the Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard) and was produced by Columbia Pictures.

The Three Stooges were always on TV growing up.  The short skits seemed to play a lot along with Little Rascals, but I don’t remember seeing many feature films.  With the Three Stooges really as supporting comic relief roles, the movie largely falls on the rest of the cast to carry the movie.

Boogie Woogie Man!

The Three Stooges do a nice job in their sketches, but the movie is largely a weird, romantic musical.  The story is a bit unusual in that you expect the characters of Mike and Danny to pair up with Kitty and Frances (almost like White Christmas), but the Frances storyline goes another way and the movie largely becomes about the partnership between Mike and Danny (with Mike being a bit of a jerk about it).

Rudy Vallée, Richard Lane, Ann Miller, and Rosemary Lane aren’t very good actors.  They seem very wooden and just deliver their lines.  The movie (obviously) really comes down to the Three Stooges and Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard are the classic Stooges.  The sequences like the dance at the end and the Stooges’ classic Maharaja skit are high points of the film.

Village People…the Early Years

Visually, the movie is rather typical.  The physical stunts of the Stooges are slick, but most of the sets and visuals are rather dull.  I do like the “Boogie Woogie Man” musical number which does some experimentation with light and music which raises it above some of the other numbers.

Time Out for Rhythm is pretty much what you’d expect from a musical comedy from this period.  You get the bonus of having the Three Stooges in it instead of a really bad comic relief character and that does raise the film slightly.  The movie is also short (a definite plus), but primarily, the movie is for fans of the period’s genre or the Three Stooges…expect no more, expect no less.

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