The entire film
The Three Stooges scenes only
TIME OUT FOR RHYTHM was filmed and released in 1941 by Columbia and this was during the time where, in my opinion, The Three Stooges were artistically at their peak. The boys were never put into many features and this is pure speculation on my part, but the filming of TIME OUT FOR RHYTHM coincided shortly after the release of Abbott and Costello’s BUCK PRIVATES. It’s possible that was the inspiration for putting the boys in a film as comic relief in a dramatic musical. Then again, it could just be pure coincidence but using comics as a comedy relief in features instead of being pure stars on their own seemed to be common in the day.
I’m going to mostly review this as a Stooge film. When Jed Leland panned Susan Kane’s performance in CITIZEN KANE, it was the music part as he said the drama belonged to another department. Well, I’m the Stooge department. I’ll just quickly say there’s a bunch of swing numbers, some drama concerning booking partners and romance, and some dude named Rudy Vallee and some dudette named Ann Miller in this. If swing era b films are your thing - and I know these films have their audience - proceed with more than Stooge interest.
As for The Three Stooges, this is a 75 minute film and they appear in a little more than 15 minutes of it. Essentially, that equals about one short worth of footage. They play ham actors who are trying to impress the booking agents for a gig, so they do a lot of comic acts for them. The boys are in top form where they’re on.
Most famous is the maharaja routine that would later be done in THREE LITTLE PIRATES. I was getting some good laughs here and being 1941, Curly was in much better health. A pure pleasure to watch a familiar routine in what feels like an alternate form during their prime. Curly gets to throw knives at Larry pinned on the wall and all comedians involved give it their all. Great stuff.
We get another funny bit where Moe and Larry are rehearsing dialogue and whenever Moe is supposed to deliver a slap in response to Larry’s line, Larry throws Curly in front of him to take the slap. Another fun bit where the boys deliver a message as postmen and the message accidentally gets torn up - so they frantically go on the ground to piece it back together. Finally, towards the end, we see the boys in a big musical number! Not the kind of thing budget wise we see in the shorts. Curly dresses in a Carmen Miranda outfit and Moe and Larry as bandoleros.
Whenever the boys are on film, the mood of the film changes and completely focuses on them. Writers at the time did have trouble incorporating comics like The Three Stooges into plots of feature films. But the comic relief they get is fun and it’s about one short’s worth of material - mixed in with an hour of non Stooge stuff. A shame the boys couldn’t get a real feature at this time, but for a fan like me who has seen the shorts a zillion times (and will watch a zillion more), this fifteen minutes of new footage is quite fresh. Check it out if you haven’t done so already.
