Star Spangled Rhythm

**Star Spangled Rhythm** is a 1942 feature film from Paramount Pictures starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour, and many more.

## Summary

Pop Webster 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 has told his son Johnny, a Navy man, that he's the studio's Executive Vice President in Charge of Production. When Johnny takes a shore leave in Hollywood, Pop and the studio's switchboard operator Polly Judson 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 recruit the rest of the stars on the lot.

## Cast

* Victor Moore as William "Pop" Webster
* Betty Hutton as Polly Judson
* Eddie Bracken as Johnny Webster
* Walter Abel as B.G. DeSoto
* Cass Daley as Mimi
* Cecil B. DeMille as himself
* Preston Sturges as himself
* Edward Fielding as Y. Frank Freemont
* Boyd Davis as Captain Kingsley
* Anne Revere as Sarah (uncredited)

* Bob Hope - Master of Ceremonies
* Bing Crosby - "Old Glory" number
* Fred MacMurray - Frank in "If Men Played Cards as Women Do"
* Franchot Tone - John in "If Men Played Cards as Women Do"
* Ray Milland - Joe in "If Men Played Cards as Women Do"
* Lynne Overman - in "If Men Played Cards as Women Do"
* Dorothy Lamour - "Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number
* Paulette Goddard - "Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number
* Veronica Lake - "Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number
* Arthur Treacher - "Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number
* Sterling Holloway - "Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number
* Walter Catlett - "Sweater, Sarong & Peekaboo Bang" number
* Vera Zorina - "That Old Black Magic" number
* Mary Martin - "Hit the Road to Dreamland" number
* Dick Powell - "Hit the Road to Dreamland" number
* Alan Ladd - Scarface skit
* Marjorie Reynolds - Swing Shift skit
* Susan Hayward - Genevieve in Priorities skit
* Eddie "Rochester" Anderson - "Sharp as a Tack" number
* Katherine Dunham - dancer in "Sharp as a Tack" number
* William Bendix - Herman the Husband in Bob Hope skit
* Jerry Colonna - Bob Hope skit
* Macdonald Carey - Louie the Lug in skit

* The character "B.G. Desoto" is modeled after Paramount executive producer B.G. DeSylva, and "Y. Frank Freemont" after vice-president Y. Frank Freeman. 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.
* Others who appear in the film include Rod Cameron, Eva Gabor, Cecil Kellaway, Matt McHugh, Robert Preston and Woody Strode. Strode is seen only very briefly as Eddie Anderson's chauffeur in the "Sharp as a Tack" number.
* This marked the feature film debut of Bing Crosby's son, Gary Crosby, who was nine years old at the time.
* 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*.