Time Out for Rhythm

Thanks to TCM, the most pleasant viewing surprise I’ve had in a long time was “Time Out for Rhythm” (1941), a nice little Columbia B musical starring Ann Miller, Rudy Vallee and a couple of Warner Bros. refugees, Rosemary Lane and Allen Jenkins. But most important, The Three Stooges are in it. Big time.

I didn’t know anything about this movie, but did recall seeing the title in a Stooges filmography. I was expecting a cameo appearance, or maybe having them show up in a musical number. To my very great surprise, and delight, they are featured throughout the whole movie and enjoy as much footage as the film’s stars. It’s like discovering previously unknown Stooges shorts from the Curly era.

The plot is typical of these B musicals, a trifle to hang an assortment of production numbers on, the best of which is a terrifically imaginative production number called “Boogie Woogie Boy” performed by Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra. Rudy Vallee and Richard Lane (Inspector Farraday from the Boston Blackie series) are bickering theatrical producers always on the lookout for talent. They spot Ann Miller, a maid who is first seen tap dancing to a song on the radio. There’s a tempermental star (Rosemary Lane) who you just know will cause so many problems the producers will call on Miller to save the day.

Interspersed among all this are The Three Stooges who are desperate to break into show business and are forever hounding Vallee and his aide Allen Jenkins. Devoting so much footage to the Stooges means there’s less of the preening Rudy Vallee to contend with, which is a good thing. (He was one year away from career resurrection via Preston Sturges in “The Palm Beach Story.”). They do their famous “Ma Ha” routine and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

Some of the funniest scenes show the Stooges interacting with two women (Blanche Stewart and Elvia Allman) who may be homelier than they are. At one point one of the Stooges (I forget which one) says something like “I can’t believe five people who look like us are in the same room together.” The girls later join the boys at the end for the big musical number. I’m not familiar with these actresses and not sure if Columbia was grooming them as a female Stooges team, but they were very funny and played well with the Stooges.

Watching “Time Out for Rhythm” was like watching a film from an alternate universe. It’s odd seeing the Stooges acting with name players from the era. It’s one thing for them to share screen time with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in “Dancing Lady” (1933) when they were still with Ted Healy and hadn’t yet fully developed their personalities.

In something like “Time Out for Rhythm”, however, they are completely and gloriously The Three Stooges, accompanied by the full arsenal of sound effects courtesy the Columbia short subjects department. Hearing these familiar sound effects one minute, and then Rudy Vallee crooning a love song a few minutes later, is surreal. Adding to the oddity is regular Stooge foil Bud Jameson as a short order cook in one scene. What are all these denizens of Stoogedom doing in Rudy Vallee and Ann Miller land? The Boys are even referenced by name in the final production number of the title song, a terrific number from Ann Miller.

There’s no great meaning in this movie, just 75 minutes of an unending series of funny comedy skits and musical numbers. Sony has had enormous success with their chronological sets of Three Stooges shorts, with the eighth and final edition due June 1. I recall reading an interview with a Sony home video exec who said the titles were so successful they weren’t considered catalog titles, but regular DVD issues. If Sony is still looking to make more money off the boys, they should consider releasing “Time Out for Rhythm” on DVD and playing up the Stooges on the cover. Stooges fans would be pleased. What a treat this movie was.

The Palm Beach Story

“The Palm Beach Story” (1942) is another delightful piece of cinema courtesy of the great writer/director Preston Sturges. Eccentricity is the norm here, and the film boasts so many delightful sequences, actors and quotable lines that I barely know where to begin. (Word of caution: I’ll be using the word eccentric a lot in this review.)

Geraldine Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) is love with her inventor husband Tom (Joel McCrea), but he cant’ find financing for his inventions, they are behind in their rent, and she yearns for the finer things in life. Showing up to look at their apartment is a bizarre little man with a big hat and a walking stick who calls himself The Wienie King (Robert Dudley, pictured), an eccentric millionaire who takes a great liking to Geraldine and pays off their back rent and gives her some money to get them back on their feet.

Tom is suspicious of their unforeseen windfall and fights with Geraldine. Even though they are still very much in love, they decide to divorce. Geraldine takes off for Palm Beach by train where she is made mascot of a group of eccentric men called the Ale and Quail Club, who think nothing of using their private railroad car as target practice. Ale and Quail Club members include many familiar faces including William Demarest, Jack Norton, Robert Greig, Roscoe Ates, Dewey Robinson and Chester Conklin (contemporary audiences know him as the old-time fire chief who refuses to give up his horse-drawn fire wagons in the Three Stooges short “Flat Foot Stooges” (1938).

Escaping the insanity of the Ale and Quail Club, she meets John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), one of the world’s richest men, when she breaks his glasses (twice) after stepping on his face to climb into an upper berth of the railroad car.

Vallee is hilarious as Hackensacker and it ushered in a whole new career for him after his popularity waned from strong popularity in the early 1930s. (He initiated the singing into the megaphone gimmick). Seemingly oblivious to the insanity around him, he takes Geraldine to Palm Beach where he introduces her to his sister, the five-times divorced Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor) and her latest conquest Toto (Sig Arno), who doesn’t speak a word of English.

Even though Geraldine is seeking a divorce, she still believes in Tom and his inventions and seeks to have Hackensacker loan her $99,000 for his inventions.

In the meantime, Tom has met the Wienie King who convinces him he is still in love with his wife and gives him the funds to fly down to Palm Beach and bring her back. He meets her in Palm Beach while she is with Hackensacker and Centimillia, and shocked to see him, introduces him to them as her brother. Of course Centimillia is smitten with Tom and more complications until the most satisfying, and clever wrap-up.

“The Palm Beach Story” is one of the great pieces of screwball comedy. The opening sequence, which I won’t go into, is very clever, and the Wienie King is a classic character. The Ale and Quail Club sequence is comedy gold.

For me, the one drawback is McCrea. I like McCrea in westerns and even in other dramas, but here he’s Mr. Glum and Gloomy to the point where I never understood what Geraldine saw in Tom. McCrea and Sturges had enjoyed a big success a year earlier with “Sullivan’s Travels” and Sturges liked to work with people he liked, but I’ve always felt McCrea was miscast here.

I can see why he was hired, as both he and Colbert are the models of normalcy while all the insanity ranges about him, but he’s too grouchy. Perhaps Fred MacMurray would have been a better choice here.

“The Palm Beach Story” would normally rate four stars, but because of McCrea’s portrayal, it only gets a still more than respectable three and a half stars.