Rhythm on the River

While a pleasant enough musical, what stuck with me about this movie was the unexpected comedic chemistry between Basil Rathbone, as the has-been composer, and Oscar Levant as his assistant. Playing a high strung, distracted artistic type (a far cry from his more familiar roles as either menacing villains or the coolly logical Sherlock Holmes), Rathbone's character looks like he couldn't find his way out of bed without help. And that help is Starbuck, played with his usual droll humor by Oscar Levant. Upon hiring Crosby's character as his ghost song writer, Rathbone introduces him to Starbuck by saying, "He does all my thinking for me.", to which Levant responds, "Ah, it's only a part-time job." Of course this goes right past (or over) Rathbone, who's too busy fretting about where his next hit song will come from. As another reviewer said, who knew Rathbone could be so funny! Too bad he didn't have more opportunities to display his comedic talent.