Como Vencer na Vida Sem Fazer Força

What a great musical! Too bad only one song made the hit parade( I Believe in You) Michelle Lee's singing voice has the depth and range of Barbara Striesand....wish we could have heard more of it. Rudy Vallee was a gem...topped off a remarkable career --the Elvis of the 1920s! Get the DVD....it's a beautiful transfer!

Today, at 77 years old, Robert Morse is still going strong as Mad Men's Cooper, but there's no question that his heyday was the late '50s to the early '70s, when his toothy grin, amiable tenor and boyish acting made him the toast of Broadway. Here, he repeats his Broadway success as J. Pierpont Finch in "How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying," a 1967 film also starring Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee, and Anthony Teague. Lee and Vallee also repeat their Broadway roles.

With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, "How to Succeed" is the story of window washer J. Pierpont Finch, who in a matter of days, thanks to a book he carries around by the same name as the film title, has risen through the ranks of the Worldwide Wicket Company without doing any work. He has his enemies, but one very good friend in Rosemary (Lee), a secretary with a crush on him who wants Ponty, as he is called, to make good.

I'm not all that familiar with the musical, but I understand that there are several songs missing, including "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm." The standouts are "I Believe in You," which became a hit song, and the rousing "Brotherhood of Man." What makes the music for me is the wonderful orchestrations.

Sexist today in some of its themes, this is a brightly-colored musical, done the old-fashioned way, without cutting the numbers to pieces. Morse is delightful and never had any trouble adapting to film. Ditto a young, pretty Lee who sings "I Believe in You" like a dream. Vallee is well cast as the head of the company who has a girlfriend on the side. Anthony Teague is very good as the boss' nephew, but Charles Nelson Reilly played this role on stage, and I can only imagine how hilarious he was in the role.

Good movie, and director David Swift keeps the pace moving.

The longer I watched the movie the more convinced I became that the world of business in 2006 is the same as it was in 1967. Robert Morse as J.P. Finch finds a self-help book that he uses as his guide to get ahead in the corporate world. Nothing different there than now. Go to any bookstore and there are an amazing number of "how to" books simply written and easily read (don't get me wrong, many are indeed very good).

J.P. Finch follows every page's instructions very carefully. He learns how to utilize people's weaknesses to promote himself. Along the way he sings several quite original songs that are quite entertaining and definitely add to the story.

It was evident that everyone making the movie was having a good time. Yet they took their roles seriously and did not overplay their roles. The comedy is high level and the satire is nothing less than brilliant.

This was one of the rare Broadway musicals whose book is actually more interesting than its score. So while roughly a half-dozen Frank Loesser songs from the stage version are deleted, they're not really missed. What survives is a witty skewering of office politics, featuring much of the Broadway cast. And while such '60s business staples as rampant sexism and smoking now look quaintly offensive, the gleeful satirizing of backstabbing and skulduggery in business will always be relevant. David Swift, whose training was in TV, doesn't do much with the widescreen format (except for the ingenious ballet-mechanique in "A Secretary Is Not a Toy"), but he cuts cleverly away from the production numbers just as the musical-comedy silliness is on the verge of becoming embarrassing, and he splices in some delectable location shots of '60s New York. The color scheme is bright, the pacing brisk, the cast friendly, the production values refreshingly modest. At a time in movie history when so many adaptations of stage hits were overbudgeted and overlong, what a pleasure to see something to faithful to its source material -- and so unpretentious.

HOW TO Succeed IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING is the 1967 film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning 1960 Broadway musical that broke Broadway box office records and made a star out of Robert Morse. Morse was thankfully allowed to recreate his Broadway role in this exuberant film version as J. Pierpont Finch, an ambitious young window washer who, through the aid of the title book, cleverly manages to work his way up the corporate ladder at World Wide Wickets, Inc. Morse lights up the screen in the best role of his career. He sadly never really got a role of this caliber again and I've never been able to figure out why. He gives a smart and brassy performance and is well-supported by 20's crooner Rudy Vallee, also reprising his Broadway role as company president JB Biggley and Michele Lee as devoted secretary/girlfriend Rosemary Pilkington. There is also standout work by Anthony Teague as company brown-noser Bud Frump and Maureen Arthur as Miss La Rue, Biggley's outspoken mistress whose physicals assets clearly outweigh her secretarial skills. David Swift's fast-paced direction is a plus as is Bob Fosse's inventive choreography. Sadly, the original score has been severely tampered with and several great songs from the stage show have been cut, but we still have "How to", "The Company Way", "A Secretary is not a Toy", "It's been a long day", and the show's most famous song, "I Believe in You." A clever and entertaining screen adaptation of a classic Broadway musical.