Time Out for Rhythm (1941)

(On Cable TV, November 2019) One of the certitudes about tracking down lesser-known movies from favourite actors is that the more obscure they get, the less good they are. (Well, usually.)  Time Out for Rhythm will never make anyone’s list of best movies—not in general, not for musicals, not for films of 1941. It’s almost obscure these days, but never mind me—I’m here for Ann Miller, who gets a substantial supporting role here in addition to singing and dancing. Others will focus on the scattering of appearances by The Three Stooges, but they’ve never been my kind of comedians in the first place. The rest of the film is a bit dull: It’s another showbiz comedy set in New York, with talent agents having a falling-out when an opportunistic woman (played by Rosemary Lane) comes between them. The production values are fair, with a highlight being the glow-in the-dark “Boogie Woogie Man” number. Thematically, mentions of a television show are unusual for a film of the early 1940s—While movies of the 1950s obsessed over TV as more and more sets made their way into homes, it was still fancy new technology back in 1941 and having characters speak about the potential of TV shows marks them as forward-looking. Time Out for Rhythm doesn’t hold a candle to many other musicals of the time, but it being a musical, it’s never uninteresting for long: there’s usually a musical number or a comic routine to perk up our interest at regular intervals. As for myself, I got to see Miller tap-dance through a few more good numbers showcasing her, so at least that’s it. I doubt I’ll remember much of the film in a few weeks, though.