Step by Step

Tune in early as swimwear clad Anne Jeffreys and Lawrence Tierney soak up some Sun before the sand hits the fan in this short n' sinster RKO drama where the two team-up to thwart a ship to shore criminal enterprise in what proves a pretty nifty little thriller. Best known as a good, bad guy (Dillinger), Larry's act here proves a not bad, good guy, you might even say charming, with his furry sidekick Bazooka, played by Rommy, issue of the famous Terry (Toto), proving man's best witness in love AND murder (Born to Kill). This one won't change your life but it'll keep you outta' trouble for 62 minutes (3/4).

From somewhere "back east," pretty blonde Anne Jeffreys (as Evelyn Smith) arrives on the Southern California coast to work for a US Senator. Because he is to receive some delicately "top secret" information about Nazis plotting a post-World War II comeback, Ms. Jeffreys is sent to the beach for a swim. Comely filling her striped bikini, Jeffreys attracts wolf whistles, a "Hubba, hubba!" and binoculars from handsome ex-Marine Lawrence Tierney (as Johnny Christopher). Changing into his bathing trunks, Mr. Tierney moves in for a closer look. Despite having a cute little dog "Bazooka" and a beefy frame, Tierney is rebuffed on the beach and Jeffreys goes home. Accidentally locked out of his car after his own swim, Tierney goes to the Senator's mansion to ask Jeffreys for help...

There, Tierney is told Jeffreys doesn't exist and is introduced to another blonde claiming to be the Senator's secretary...

Producer Sid Rogell's bottom-billed B-picture is intriguing and well-paced. No doubt "Step by Step" pleased many filmgoers more than whatever accompanied it on a double-feature or matinée. The plot is typically silly and melodramatically played, but never tries to be anything else. Veteran director Phil Rosen know the territory and moves it briskly. Paul Sawtell's soundtrack music appropriately evokes old Hollywood serials. Often cast as a hardened criminal, Tierney is fine as a hero –he should have been cast this way more often. He and "Bazooka" are a good team. Jeffreys is lovely. Leading the capable supporting characters is almost impossibly helpful ex-Marine motel manager George Cleveland (as Caleb Simpson). This is not a bad way to fill an hour, if you've got one.

******* Step by Step (8/23/46) Phil Rosen ~ Lawrence Tierney, Anne Jeffreys, George Cleveland, Phil Warren

A senator, his secretary, a German spy ring, an ex-marine and his feisty little mutt, and an amiable codger converge to give us this peppy spy-comedy. This was before the spy spoof (James Bond, Austin Powers) which feature absurd, cartoonish heroes battling impossible threats. The STEP BY STEP genre, though its plausibility is still suspect, is more realistic in its characters and especially its threats, such as German spies. There actually WERE German spies.

Lawrence Tierney and Anne Jeffreys manage to meet and immediately get mixed up in the murder of a "government operative" who has come to give vital information to the senator Jeffreys works for. It doesn't matter that we're never told the nature of the information the spies are after; the movie is too short and the plot too simple for that. It's strictly a FOR FUN picture, with Lawrence Tierney less of a tough guy and more comical than usual. I mean, here's a guy who locks himself out of his woody, then later, accompanied by a bow-tie wearing cop (it was the Forties, just accept it), enters the senator's presence wearing nothing but swimming trunks!

The dog, Bazooka, has some pretty good moments. He's one of those 40's canine actors who are possessed of irritatingly and at the same time charmingly unrealistic smarts - such as instantly recognizing the hammer the spies throw at him as an instrument by which his master can break into the locked car.

John Hamilton plays the Captain, proprietor of the motel where Tierney and Jeffreys hide out. Funny when the loveable codger asks the couple for his radio amplifier tube back so he can listen to Dick Tracy.

STEP BY STEP succeeds as a FUN picture, but I can't help wondering how these quickies were originally presented. Double features? Because if I'd been part of the moviegoing public in 1946, I'd have wanted at least another short one to go along with SBS.

Lawrence Tierney didn't often get to play good guys, and--judging by his performance in this compact, tight little actioner--he's actually pretty good at it. Tierney plays an ex-Marine who inadvertently gets mixed up with a pretty blonde (Anne Jeffreys, looking fetching), German spies and a murdered secret agent. There's more comedy than you usually see in a Tierney picture but there's also the kind of shootouts and fisticuffs you expect in a Tierney picture, and director Phil Rosen expertly blends them all together; in fact, this is probably the best of Rosen's pictures that I've seem (he could usually be found grinding out cheap Bowery Boys programmers for Monogram and shoddy jungle pictures, and worse, for PRC). There's a good supporting cast--John Hamilton, George Cleveland, James Flavin--it's well acted, moves like lightning and everything gets wrapped in just about an hour. Location shooting along the California coast helps greatly. A fun picture, definitely worth an hour of your time.

Short Little Throw-Away of a Movie has a Fast Pace and a Lawrence Tierney Good Guy to Boot. It is Exciting and Never Very Serious in its Attempt at a Story of German Spies (the war was over), but Nevertheless was Undeterred in Using the Defeated Nazis as Germans Gone Underground just Waiting for Another Chance.

It is All Flighty and Fluff with a Dog. Some Comedy Among the Espionage as the Mistaken Identity Couple Outwit the Police and the Bad Guys with the Help of an Old Jalopy and a Crusty Geezer with a Knack for Knowing Innocence when He sees it.

At just Over an Hour it is a Pleasant Time Waster with some Joyful Action and Plenty of Silly Suspense to Keep Things Interesting. It may be the Only Movie where the Star is in a Bathing Suit and Nothing Else, Showing Plenty of Beefcake, for what Seems-Like Forever in this Oddly Pastiched Programmer.