RHYTHM IN THE CLOUDS (1937)

Judy Walker is a struggling songwriter who has submitted some songs to well-known composer Phil Hale. He sends her a nice rejection letter, but promises to look at her stuff again when he comes back to town. When her landlady gets ready to evict her, Judy alters his letter to make it read as though she is his niece and he is letting her stay at his fancy apartment while he's gone. She also slaps Phil's name on a song of hers and gets it accepted on a radio show sponsored by the Dutchess de Lovely's cosmetic company. Her noisy habits immediately irk her neighbor Bob McKay, also a songwriter, and they get into a wall-hammering argument without even seeing each other's faces. Of course, we all know that soon enough, they will meet cute, and that happens when he supplies lyrics to some her melodies for the radio show. They hit it off until they both head home to the same building and realize they hate each other. More complications arise: singer Dorothy Day is approached to sing the new songs but Bob is her ex, and she is not inclined to be of help to him. Then, inevitably, Phil returns to his apartment, unaware of Judy's presence and the shenanigans being pulled involving his name.

This B-musical isn't even really a musical—only a couple of songs are performed, though Judy's breakout song, "Don't Ever Change," is actually quite catchy. It's best enjoyed as a mild screwball forerunner. The B-level actors are tolerable (Patricia Ellis as Judy, Warren Hull as Bob, Robert Paige as Phil, Zeffie Tilbury as the Countess), though you can see who the models are for the performers: Ellis is a cut-rate Carole Lombard, Hull is a cut-rate James Craig, Tilbury a lesser Mary Boland, sidekick William Newell is aiming for Franklin Pangborn. The comic writing is weak and the comic timing is sometimes off by quite a bit. I kept pulling for this to get better; if it never quite takes, neither is it a clunky disaster. It didn't get bad enough for me to stop watching—I guess that's the definition of "damning with faint praise." [YouTube]