''Time Out for Rhythm'' is a 1941
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...
comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
directed by
Sidney Salkow
Sidney Salkow (June 16, 1911 – October 18, 2000) was an American film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulf ...
and starring
Rudy Vallée
Hubert Prior Vallée (July 28, 1901 – July 3, 1986), known professionally as Rudy Vallée, was an American singer, musician, actor, and radio host. He was one of the first modern pop stars of the teen idol type.
Early life
Hubert Prior Vall ...
,
Ann Miller
Ann Miller (born Johnnie Lucille Collier; April 12, 1923 – January 22, 2004) was an American retired actress and former dancer. She is best remembered for her work in the Classical Hollywood cinema musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Her early ...
and the
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
(
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He is best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television ...
,
Larry Fine
Louis Feinberg (October 5, 1902 – January 24, 1975), known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges.
Early life
Fine was born to a Russian Je ...
, and
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester Horwitz (; October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), known professionally as Curly Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the American comedy team the Three Stooges, which also featured his elder ...
).
Six Hits and a Miss
Six Hits and a Miss was an American swing-era singing group. The group consisted of six male singers and one female (thus the word "miss" in their name has a double meaning – the converse of the word "hit", and denotation of a young woman). Th ...
perform, as well as
Glen Gray
Glenn Gray Knoblauch (June 7, 1900 – August 23, 1963), known professionally as Glen Gray, was an American jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra.''The Mississippi Rag'', "Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra," George A. Bo ...
and His Casa Loma Orchestra, and
Eduardo Durant
Eduardo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the male given name Edward. Another version is Duarte. It may refer to:
Association football
* Eduardo Bonvallet, Chilean football player and sports commentator
* Eduardo Carvalho, Portuguese footba ...
's Rhumba Band, and with eight original songs by
Saul Chaplin
Saul Chaplin (February 19, 1912 – November 15, 1997) was an American composer and musical director.
He was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York.
He had worked on stage, screen and television since the days of Tin Pan Alley. In film, he won t ...
and
Sammy Cahn
Samuel Cohen (June 18, 1913 – January 15, 1993), known professionally as Sammy Cahn, was an American lyricist, songwriter, and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premier ...
.
Plot
Harvard educated Danny Collins (Rudy Vallée) and street-wise Mike Armstrong (
Richard Lane) team up after a chance meeting to form the most successful talent agency in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Mike is in love with nightclub and Broadway songstress Frances Lewis (
Rosemary Lane), determined to make her nationally famous with his and Danny's help. Danny sees her, correctly, as a self-centered opportunist willing to capitalize on Mike's affections to further her career.
Eventually, she causes Danny and Mike to split. Around the same time Danny and his assistant 'Off-Beat' Davis meet Frances' maid Kitty Brown (
Ann Miller
Ann Miller (born Johnnie Lucille Collier; April 12, 1923 – January 22, 2004) was an American retired actress and former dancer. She is best remembered for her work in the Classical Hollywood cinema musicals of the 1940s and 1950s. Her early ...
), a shy tap-dancing wonder, and try to find her work... but without Mike, their new agency cannot get going successfully. Mike is not having any luck on his own either, despite the fact he and Frances are now engaged
to be married.
When Danny has the opportunity to produce a New York-based variety show with Kitty and
Joan Merrill
Joan Merrill portrait
Joan Merrill (January 2, 1918 – May 10, 1992) was an American singer and actress.
Career
Merrill began her career in the 1930s on radio and later sang at nightclubs across the United States, including at the Copacabana ...
(as herself) as the headliners, he and Mike finally make amends when he needs Mike's help to seal the deal. But Frances blackmails Danny, threatening to break Mike's heart if she is not cast as the star of the show. Mike eventually learns about this and finally sees Frances for who she really is and leaves her. Mike moves forward, with Danny as his friend and business partner once again, to work on the show starring Kitty.
The film's musical finale begins with the Stooges (with help from co-stars Brenda and Cobrina) performing a hilarious rhumba dance number, with Curly Howard dressed up as
Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda, (; born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, 9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star who was active from the late 1920s onwards. Nicknamed "The B ...
.
Cast
Production notes
The
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
made appearances as out-of-work actors trying to find jobs through Danny's and Mike's agency. The Stooges provided most of the laughs as they appear throughout the movie. They showcased their famous "Maharaja" routine here for the first time, which later reused in their 1946
short subject
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
''
Three Little Pirates
''Three Little Pirates'' is a 1946 short subject directed by Edward Bernds starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard). It is the 96th entry in the series released by Columbia Pictures starri ...
'' as well as several other bits, including "Melodrama" routine from their era with
Ted Healy
Ted Healy (born Charles Ernest Lee Nash; October 1, 1896 – December 21, 1937) was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor. Though he is chiefly remembered as the creator of The Three Stooges and the style of slapstick comedy th ...
which can also be seen at MGM-era short ''
Plane Nuts
''Plane Nuts'' is the fourth of five short subjects starring Ted Healy and His Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard) released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on October 14, 1933. A musical-comedy film, the short also featured Bonnie Bonnell as ...
'' (1933).
Alan Hale, Jr.
Alan Hale Jr. (born Alan Hale MacKahan; (March 8, 1921 - January 2, 1990) was an American actor and restaurateur. He was the son of actor Alan Hale Sr. His television career spanned four decades, but he was best known for his secondary lead role ...
, best known for his role as
The Skipper
The Skipper is the title and nickname of Jonas Grumby, a fictional character from the 1960s situation comedy '' Gilligan's Island''. Played by Alan Hale Jr., the Skipper (the character's actual name was rarely mentioned after the show's pilot epis ...
on ''
Gilligan's Island
''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells. It aired for thr ...
'', also makes a brief appearance, marking one of his first film appearances.
Home media
For many years, ''Time Out for Rhythm'' remained the only Columbia feature-length film with bit parts from the Stooges unavailable in DVD format (it never saw a VHS release). Sony Pictures Home Entertainment finally gave the film a DVD release on August 7, 2012, as part of its manufactured-on-demand ''Columbia Choice Collection'' series. On February 4, 2014, Mill Creek Entertainment released the film on Blu-Ray as part of the six-movie set ''The Three Stooges Collection''.
External links
*
*
{{Sidney Salkow
1941 films
1941 musical comedy films
American musical comedy films
American black-and-white films
1940s English-language films
American films based on plays
Films directed by Sidney Salkow
Films scored by Morris Stoloff
The Three Stooges films
Columbia Pictures films
1940s American films