Boring, long, and too preachy.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Paramount produced a cavalcade of stars in this traditional World War 11 patriotic film dealing with the situations that ensue when an attendant at Paramount Studios tries to impress his navy son by claiming that he is a studio mogul.Naturally, this evolves into situations too numerous to speak of here.Victor Moore is the father and Eddie Bracken stars as the son. Bette Hutton is marvelous as Bracken's girlfriend and the ensemble cast at Paramount are terrific when putting on a show for the navy.You have to feel for Walter Abel, a mogul who is victimized in the scheme of Hutton and Moore.Add 1/2* for Bing Crosby's patriotic song ending.

Betty Hutton, one of the nominal stars of Star Spangled Rhythm, was not just doing it for defense as in her number, but the whole studio was doing this All Star flag waver for the defense of the morale of the USA.I can never resist one of these all star spectaculars and there's only one I would ever have given a bad review to, and this isn't the one. Everybody working on the Paramount lot got to do his bit for defense in this film, some bits being longer than others.The nominal plot of this film has Betty Hutton as a switchboard girl at Paramount studios and Victor Moore, a former silent western star, now working as a security guard at the studio trying to convince Eddie Bracken and a bunch of his sailor buddies that Moore is really the head of the studio. For that they have to con and bamboozle Walter Abel who is a real studio executive out of his office and off the lot so they can do their masquerade uninterrupted.Of course Bracken asks the inevitable, pop can you get all these stars down for a big Navy show, and the con has to continue. But all of this nonsense is just an excuse for some musical and comedy numbers by the Paramount players.Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer wrote the score and out of it came two really big standards, That Old Black Magic which was nominated for Best Song that year, but lost to another Paramount film song, White Christmas and Hit the Road to Dreamland.The latter was done as director Preston Sturges was playing himself and screening a musical number from his latest film. As the projector rolls on screen it's Dick Powell and Mary Martin on a Pullman car singing about finally hitting the hay after some romance. The scene is so well done I wish it was included as an integral part of a real film.That Old Black Magic is sung by Johnny Johnson and danced by ballet star Vera Zorina. It was enormous hit that year, recorded by a flock of singers. Oddly enough not by Bing Crosby though he got to sing it in another film, Here Come the Waves. Of course the finale is a wartime flag waving number with Bing Crosby singing Old Glory about the flag and the wonders of the country behind it. The number about the flag probably wouldn't fly today still and that's a pity.It's even more of a pity that these musical extravaganzas are a thing of the past with the decline of the Hollywood studio system. Star Spangled Rhythm is one of the best of its kind.

Anyone who considers himself an old movie buff must see this film. It is a time capsule of Paramount in 1942. All the studio's great stars, including Susan Hayworth, Fred MacMurray, Bob Hope. and others participate in this film. Unfortunately, some of the big stars of that time are no longer known today and the surprise of seeing them do certain numbers no longer amaze contemporary audiences as would have happened in 1942. There are some priceless vaudeville skits (such as Betty Hutton trying to get over a studio wall) that are real classics. The ending of the movie is a grand patriotic number sung by Bing Crosby as he asks Americans what this country means to them. It is too bad that today's movies don't do a little reminder like that about the glories of our country.

At best, 1942 was a year of confusion because of World War Two. Perhaps that is why the movie is uneven. The movie was released before the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor which drew the United States into the war as a legal active participant. The purpose of this film seems two-fold: to entertain in time of war and to provide Paramount with a opportunity to do its part in the war effort in public. There are some extraordinary scenes, such as the dance number in the aircraft plant and Betty Hutton's singing during a jeep ride. In general, however, the movie promises more than it delivers, and the scene with Bing Crosby singing of "Old Glory" in front of Mount Rushmore (with a patriotic chorus) is simply too jingoistic. One bright result is the Bracken-Hutton screen relationship in this movie which blossomed into very good comedy in a later film, "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek."