Step by Step (1946)

Don't Believe the Hype

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

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.

The very model of the fast-paced, short, inexpensive, utterly routine B features the studios ground out in the 30s and 40s to supplement the elaborate A features in the theater.Lawrence Tierney is a tough guy with a shaggy little dog named Bazooka. Much is made of his having just been discharged from the Marine Corps where he was evidently a Platoon Sergeant in the Pacific. This was 1946, possibly shot in 1945, just after the war. If you were going to play a good guy, you had to have served. (But not in the Coast Guard.) Tierney can't act. It doesn't matter. Things happen so fast -- what with everyone in pursuit of some secret documents that are never described -- with the fist fights, the murders, the intrigues, the funny old codger who runs the motel where Tierney and his newly acquired blond girl friend hide out, that no one, even someone who really cares, can possibly care.You don't want to blink otherwise you'll miss some sock on the jaw or a tin lizzie cresting the surf off Malibu Point. You're unlikely to thrill to an artistic masterpiece but you're not likely to fall asleep either.

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.