Rhythm in the Clouds

You can find this miserable waste of celluloid in those bargain basement 20 movies for $6 type of sets. Some of those films are really good! But not this one.

If you purchase one of those sets, please skip over this movie. If I can save one person from wasting 53 minutes of their life, this posting will be worth it.

Where o where did republic come up with this poor excuse for a cast? There are no obscure names here, obscure suggesting they were once well known. No has-beens, suggesting actors once had a decent career. The best thing I can say about the leads is that they looked pretty good. I can't comment on the acting since there wasn't any acting. There was some over acting from that annoying second rate Allen Jenkins type character - so incredibly unfunny. The leads were just a waist of space - and they couldn't sing either - and this was a musical. In fact, not one of them could even so much as carry a tune. I really hated the male lead's voice which was just a lot of bad vibrato.

There was only a couple of songs. None of them good.

So we are down to a bad attempt at comedy (writing and acting), terrible music, non existent direction, and putrid acting. Did I mention the horrid attempt at comedy yet? No charm, no fun, no nothing.

Other than that, it was great.

Shame on you, Republic Pictures. Stay out of the musical business.

Do not watch this film.

Cute little screwball comedy. Sure, it's not going to set funny bones on-fire, but the Republic programmer shows what a no-name cast and a cleverly nutty script can do for cheap entertainment. So can desperate Judy Walker (Ellis) manage a musical career by hammering on neighbor's walls, insulting her musical soul-mate, and pretending all sorts of screwball things-- stay tuned! Anyway, B-movie director Aurer keeps things moving and the humor in focus, showing again that even Hollywood no-names can deliver when proper elements converge. So give the little flick a try, even for a not-so-slow evening.

This tedious 'musical' from 1937 was clearly an A grade Republic production maybe hoping to tag along on the bottom half of a double bill with a smart A grade film from MGM or Paramount. Very well produced with lavish and well furnished big sets and some style RHYTHM IN THE CLOUDS is basically a company calling card or showreel of Republic's 'expertise'... but...someone forgot to create something for the audience to enjoy. Screenplay by Nathaniel West (Of Day Of The Locust fame...he also later adapted Let's Make Music for RKO) who must have used a blunt pencil for this one. An A grade film out of Republic was a B+ for RKO or Columbia which might indicate the level of expertise on show. Basically it is about a dishonest female music arranger sneaks into the apartment of a vacationing composer and creates the impression they are collaborating. Her music with his name on it too. It becomes a hit and makes the radio. He returns: "screwball situations" . It just isn't very interesting. A no-star cast who might have been Boston stage actors recently and a forgettable music score makes this film dull. If you want to some ambitious production imagery and set design and camera work etc hard at work at Republic in their early days of 1937 here it is. A 30s production curio only. Amusingly, it is what Grand National or later in 1937, Monogram was striving for.

In Rhythm Of The Clouds I have to say that leading lady Patricia Ellis has the guts of a burglar. She finagles and forges her way into living in composer Robert Paige's apartment and then says she's his new collaborator on his music. That gets her a contract for a new radio show where Zeffie Tilbury is the sponsor. Of course it's Ellis's own music and it's good. But it's Paige's name who puts it across.

She even gets lyricist Warren Hull to provide words which he usually does for Paige. Problem is that she has had a fight over the phone with Hull when Hull called to complain about the noise. He doesn't know that's his collaborator to be. I think you can see where this is going.

Three years after this film came out, Paramount took some of the same plot premise and fashioned Rhythm On The River for Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. Of course a better score and the production values of Paramount versus Republic a better film was created.

Still Rhythm In The Clouds is not a bad Saturday afternoon' viewing.

Patricia Ellis is a music writer who is broke and thrown out of her apartment. She goes to visit successful composer Robert Paige, but he's away. So she moves in and begins a banging-on-the-wall feud with her next-door neighbor, Warren Hull. Listing Paige as a collaborator, she gets her music sold to to advertising executive Richard Carle for face-powder magnate Zeffie Tilbury, hiring Hull -- who's a successful lyricist -- to write words for her music. Things are going along well, if confusingly, when just before the premiere of their collaborations, Paige returns.

If it sounds like it could be a comedy or turn into a Nathaniel West tragedy, that's because West was one of the writers of this movie. His great ambition in life was to be a member of literary salons, but he actually had to write to do that, and his publishers went out of business or sold only five hundred copies of a novel, so he went into the movie-writing racket. By the time he killed himself and his wife by running a red light on his way to F. Scott Fitzgerald's funeral, he had written or doctored 14 screenplays.

This Republic musical is directed rather lugubriously by John Auer. The one bright spot is William Newell, who turns every sentence into a tongue-twister. Otherwise, it's standard fare.