User reviews

Step By Step plays like a feature version of an old time serial. Jam-packed with fist fights, auto chases, Nazi spies (still causing trouble in the pre-Cold War year of 1946), comedy, a little romance, and lots more, Step By Step also features an attractive lead couple in Lawrence Tierney and Anne Jeffreys. Director Phil Rosen's bread and butter was short and sweet Poverty Row programmers, and this is one of his best. Great fun on a low, low budget.

This programmer is action packed with a story filled with intrigue and suspense. It was released during the transitional year 1946 when Hollywood was switching from the Nazi/Japanese menace to the Communist Cold War threat. Apparently, this entertaining little item was a hold over from the year before.

"Step by Step" deals with a Nazi spy ring in American attempting to stop vital intelligence information from reaching a US senator, involving murder and impersonation. Two innocents, Evelyn Smith (Anne Jeffreys) and Johnny Christopher (Lawrence Tierney)--if you can believe Tierney as an innocent--stumble into the espionage web as a result of a chance confrontation on the beach where Christopher is walking his dog, Bazooka, a friendly little mutt who's not bad as a Nazi hunter. Christopher becomes suspicious when the Nazi agents try to pass one of their own, Gretchen (Myrna Dell), off as Evelyn. Christopher comments to the effect that Gretchen has the body but not the face. "She looks like she just bit into a green persimmon," is one comment used in the film to describe Gretchen's puss. Christopher and Smith find an ally in motel keeper, Caleb Simpson (George Cleveland), a jolly old chap who provides a lot of fun in this otherwise rather dour tale of mistaken identity.

One of the best program thrillers to come out of Hollywood at the time, the acting is first rate with Lawrence Tierney playing against type. He was the definitive big screen "Dillinger," released the year before, until Warren Oates came along nearly thirty years later to equal his performance.

A programmer was approximately an hour-long B (budget) film released to play as a second feature to a major Hollywood release or as a double feature with another B movie. This is the way it worked in my home town: The major release would play as an "owl show," beginning at midnight on Saturday. It provided a good excuse for a teenager, called youngster back then, to keep his date out late without upsetting her parents too much. The major flick would continue to play on Sunday through Tuesday. Then for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and the early evening show on Saturday, a double feature, sometimes a triple feature, would be shown which presented the programmers such as "Step by Step." Included in all this would be cartoons, selected short subjects, advertisements, previews (coming attractions), and newsreels. Saturday afternoons were set aside for the kids. Usually, B westerns, two or three, would be shown along with cartoons, shorts, advertising, previews, newsreels, plus the added attraction of a serial. This was a treat for the children. For only a nickle or later a dime, kids would be entertained all afternoon while their parents shopped or took care of other business. They might all stay around for the early evening shows. Only the teens and adults usually stayed for the owl show.

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.

From what I've heard about Lawrence Tierney, he often played brutal tough guys, but here he played against type, as a clean cut Marine just home from WWII who meets a blonde on the beach (Anne Jeffreys). The blonde returns to her beach house, and when the Marine locks his keys in his car it's a great excuse to knock on her door for help . . . but the people in the house say they've never heard of her. Thus begins a merry little chase film. With a running time of just about an hour, you could do worse with your time!

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

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).

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.

Phil Rosen directs this B picture with flair and to that end he is greatly helped by the debonair and good looking leads, Lawrence Tierney and Anne Jeffreys, the latter a stunning beauty reminiscent of a pinup model... and a very, very cute mutt who gets to have the last snarl in the movie!

Cinematography is quite good for a B pic, action sequences - especially the fisticuffs - are well worked (though you can tell a stuntman does Tierney's fight sequences), and the script is strong, credible and very funny in parts, with the abovementioned cute dog making us wag our tails...

At a short 61', a most enjoyable way to spend time.

Hardly any slow patches in this pretty good b-movie, further uplifted by two strong leads: Lawrence Tierney, looking as fit as Tarzan, and Anne Jeffreys, pretty, smart and capable. **1/2 out of 4.

Lawrence Tierney with Anne Jeffreys, the gangster and moll from DILLINGER, return for STEP BY STEP, a programmer that involves crime yet is only partially film noir and, with an endearing mascot dog liken to (but a different breed than) THE THIN MAN franchise, it's a breezy ride...

Jeffreys is the newly-hired secretary for a politician working from a beachfront mansion and, in-between top-secret office work, she meets a shirtless Tierney on the beach... after his dog breaks the ice (why most men own them)... and from that point, Tierney has her number...

Not just because she's blonde and gorgeous but also befitting the plot since, with a date in mind, he wanders up to the mansion where Jeffreys' spunky-hot Evelyn is now a grimacing blond-haired Myrna Dell...

So what the audience realizes beyond the different dame is that she's working for another man entirely (Jason Robards Sr.)... obviously a partner-in-crime for a kidnapping, here involving not Russia but, although set in 1946, vengeful Nazis, providing a kind of Cold War underline...

And similar to the later NORTH BY NORTHWEST, the bogus group has carefully replaced rich important people in a luxurious manor and, like that film's predecessor also by Alfred Hitchcock, SABOTEUR (which in itself was inspired by THE 39 STEPS), this Phil Rosen RKO venture has the couple warming up as they figure out the mazy situation at hand...

Including the norish wrong-man element while taking the most screen-time at a rural motel where a friendly old-timer becomes yet another sidekick as the villains, despite being in what's more comedy than thriller, do mean deadly business, keeping the DILLINGER couple on their toes -- a shame they didn't do more films together.

In the late 1940s and into the 50s, Lawrence Tierney made a niche for himself starring in film noir pictures. His characters were cold, menacing and without remorse...exactly what you'd want in these sorts of movies. Sadly, while Tierney is in "Step By Step", it's not a noir film at all but a rather tired and uninteresting murder mystery involving neo-Nazis.

Johnny (Tierney) has recently returned from serving in the US military during WWII. He sees a very pretty lady, Evelyn Smith (Anne Jeffreys) and soon his lust for this woman draws him into a plot involving murder and post-war Nazis! It seems that Smith learned too much and was taken prisoner and they substituted her with another woman...and Johnny recognized the switch. However, he soon is himself accused of murder and he and the real Smith are sent on a wild chase by the authorities. Can goodness, Americanism and niceness prevail?!

This is a silly film with some bad clichés (such as the stranger that automatically believes the pair and helps them evade police). Not terrible...but also not very good and completely lacking in grit. Simply a B-movie...a B that came out a year too late considering its Nazi connection!

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.

Maybe RKO got caught short by V-E and V-J day but decided to release this wartime propaganda programmer anyway. It's still a clumsy embarrassment all around. Just-demobbed leatherneck Lawrence Tierney spots a comely blonde (Anne Jeffreys) going in for a swim along the Pacific Coast Highway and decides to join her. She's just signed up a secretary to a senator on a hush-hush assignment but both she and her employer are kidnapped by Nazis and replaced by imposters (in her place is Myrna Dell, who looks like she just `bit into a green persimmon'). Tierney spends half the movie in bathing trunks trying to find her even though the police are now after them as a pair of killers. The whole thing looks dark and cheap; not even Jason Robards (Sr.) as an unctuous German helps out. Director Phil Rosen doesn't even attain the level of competence he did in his several Charlie Chan flicks. Step by Step's only virtue lies in eliciting giggles at the awkwardness of its script, its acting, its production values and even its ideology.

Okay RKO programmer. Though released in 1946, the premise involves Nazis trying to keep their goals alive. Actually, the script makes reference to historical Germany (Bismarck) as "enemies of civilization", no less. Anyhow, discharged marine Johnny (Tierney) gets accidentally mixed up with the Nazi remnants, and gets blamed for murders the die-hards actually committed. Good thing he's got help from comely blonde Evelyn (Jeffreys) and motel owner (Cleveland).The remainder involves a lot of sometimes aimless chasing around. For me, the highlights are the expertly photographed ocean views. To its credit, this programmer goes beyond the usual cramping studio sets.

Looks like RKO was promoting Tierney as studio stud since he spends movie's first third shirtless, sporting manly pecs and flat belly. He does well enough in hero's role, but his real charisma showed through as emotionless villains, e.g. (Born to Kill, {1947}). To bad for his career he couldn't stay off the juice and barroom brawls. (Apparently, he scared the heck out of the amiable cast of Seinfeld, {1989-1998}, when he appeared in an episode.) Nonetheless he was a distinctive screen presence, though that presence doesn't really come through here.

All in all, director Rosen keeps things moving, which helps divert attention from a convoluted narrative. But my guess is that the script was hastily reworked once the big war ended. Happily, RKO soon turned to noir.

Even though World War II had ended the previous years and the Axis regimes we fought were also ended, Nazis were still serviceable villains. Step By Step has some Nazis right here in the good old USA regrouping for another chance.

But they have to get a list from US Senator Harry Harvey first. He's been doing some investigating and he has a list. You'd think he'd know it by heart, but I digress.

Anyway recently discharged former Marine Lawrence Tierney meets Harvey's secretary Anne Jeffreys out on the beach for a swim and later when he inquires, he's told there's no such a person. That starts the whole rigmarole and we discover fifth columnists still doing their nasty wartime stuff.

Step By Step should have been left behind for war surplus as the market was glutted with these kinds of films 41 to 45. There are far worse, but a lot better that have stood the test of time. Right at the beginning Harvey says that we've been fighting these people since Bismarck. Really a US Senator ought to know his history better.