Main Cast: Victor Moore, Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, Anne Revere, Walter Abel
Release Year: 1942
Country: US
Run Time: 99 minutes
Plot
Star-Spangled Rhythm is a typical wartime all-star musical-comedy melange, this time from Paramount Pictures. The slender plot involves the efforts by humble studio doorman Pop Webster (Victor Moore) to pass himself off as a big-shot Paramount executive for the benefit of his sailor son Jimmy (Eddie Bracken). The overall level of humor can be summed up by the scene in which Webster is advised that the best way to pretend to be a studio big-shot is to say "It stinks!" to everything -- whereupon Cecil B. DeMille shows up to ask Webster's opinion about his current production. Betty Hutton, cast as studio switchboard operator and co-conspirator Polly Judson, is at her most rambunctiously appealing here. The huge lineup of guest performers includes Bing Crosby (and his 8-year-old son Gary!), Bob Hope, Veronica Lake, Dorothy Lamour, Dick Powell, Mary Martin, Alan Ladd, Fred MacMurray, William Bendix, Paulette Goddard, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, most (but not all) of them going through their characteristic paces. Highlights include a surrealistic rendition of That Old Black Magic with Johnnie Johnston and Vera Zorina; a frantic staging of the old George S. Kaufman sketch "If Men Played Cards as Women Do" with MacMurray, Ray Milland, Franchot Tone, and Lynn Overman; and The Sweater, the Sarong and the Peekaboo Bang, first performed by Goddard, Lamour and Lake, then lampooned in drag by Arthur Treacher, Sterling Holloway and Walter Catlett! PS: The actor playing Rochester's chauffeur in the Smart as a Tack number is John Ford "regular" Woody Strode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
As all-star revues go, Star Spangled Rhythm is one of the better ones. Forget the ridiculous storyline that has been grafted onto the proceedings. While Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, and Victor Moore do their best to make it lively, it's superfluous -- although it does give one the unique opportunity to see Preston Sturges in a cameo threatening to move to MGM! The only real reason for watching Rhythm is to catch all the specialty numbers that make up the last part of the film and which feature just about every Paramount star on the lot. That this also features a number of Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer songs only adds to its appeal, especially when those songs include the magnificent and haunting "That Old Black Magic" and the immensely appealing "Hit the Road to Dreamland." Watching Vera Zorina dance the former and Mary Martin and Dick Powell sing the latter only adds to the entertainment. While the "If Men Played Cards as Women Do" sketch comes across as a bit dated now, it's very well played, and the Bob Hope-William Bendix shower sketch is a genuine riot, as is Hutton wall-climbing routine. Perhaps the most unexpected pleasure is seeing Paulette Goddard, Dorothy Lamour, and Veronica Lake spoofing their sexy trademarks in "A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peek-a-Boo Bang," followed by the unlikely sight of Arthur Treacher, Walter Catlett, and Sterling Holloway reprising the same. The first half of Star Spangled Rhythm gets a bit dull, but it's worth sitting through it for the remainder. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Star Spangled Rhythm is a 1943 all-star cast musical film made by Paramount Pictures during World War II as a morale booster. Many of the Hollywood studios produced such films during the war, generally musicals, frequently with flimsy storylines, and with the specific intent of entertaining the troops overseas and civilians back home and to encourage fundraising – as well as to show the studios' patriotism.
Pop Webster (Victor Moore) is a former silent movie star once known as "Bronco Billy" who now works as the guard on the main gate at Paramount Pictures. However, he's told his son Johnny (Eddie Bracken), who's in the Navy, that he's the studio's Executive Vice President in Charge of Production. When Johnny shows up in Hollywood on shore leave, Pop and the studio's switchboard operator Polly Judson (Betty Hutton) go all-out to maintain the illusion for Johnny and his sailor friends that Pop's a studio big-wig. Things get a bit complicated when Pop offers to put on a variety show for the Navy, featuring all of Paramount's stars, but Polly convinces Bob Hope and Bing Crosby to do the show, and they convince the rest of the stars on the lot.[2][3][4]
The character "B.G. Desoto" is modeled after Paramount executive producer B.G. DeSylva, and "Y. Frank Freemont" after vice-president Y. Frank Freeman.[5] When pretending to be "Mr Freemont"'s secretary, Betty Hutton speaks in an affected Southern accent; the real Y. Frank Freeman was a Southerner who was intensely loyal to Dixie.
Star Spangled Rhythm marked the feature film debut of Bing Crosby's son, Gary Crosby, who was 9 years old at the time.[6]
Although "Benito Mussolini", "Hirohito" and "Adolf Hitler" are listed as characters in this film, the actors cast in those roles are not actually portraying the dictators themselves; they are merely impersonators showing up for a brief sight gag at the end of the novelty number "A Sweater, a Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang". Tom Dugan, a veteran character actor who appeared as "Adolf Hitler", also played "Bronski", an actor who plays the part of "Adolf Hitler", in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy To Be or Not To Be.[5]
The working title of "Star Spangled Rhythm" was "Thumbs Up". Paramount paid Arthur Ross and Fred Saidy for the rights to two sketches from their musical revue Rally Round the Girls, which were used in the film. The "That Old Black Magic" sequence, which was directed by A. Edward Sutherland, was intended to be directed by René Clair, who was unavailable at the time of shooting.[5]
Max H. Aronson, an actor-director-writer-producer who was father of the movie cowboy and the first Western star, made almost 400 films between 1907 and 1923 under the name Broncho Billy Anderson.[12] In 1943, he sued Paramount for using the "Broncho Billy" name without permission. Aronson objected to the "Bronco Billy" character in Star Spangled Rhythm being a "washed-up and broken-down actor," which he felt reflected badly on himself. Aronson asked for $900,000, but the outcome of the lawsuit is unknown.[5]
