Step Lively
by Tim Whelan
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adolphe Menjou, Frank Sinatra, George Murphy, Gloria DeHaven, Walter SlezakDirector: Tim Whelan
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Robert De Grasse
Editor: Gene Milford
Producer: Robert Fellows
Writer: Allen Boretz
Writer: John Murray
Writer: Peter Milne
Writer: Warren Duff
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Step Lively
Movie Review: REMAKES CAN BE QUITE GOOD
Summary: 4 Stars
(I apologize to Amazon.com and my fellow litterature and cinema buffs. I wrote in my DOUBLE DYNAMITE review that ROBERT BENCHLEY was uncredited.
Great writers never die but actors do and Benchley was dead in 1948. Howard Freeman who played the bank owner was taller and heavier than Benchley. I tripped over my internet tongue in a big way.)
STEP LIVELY is well known as a remake of the MARX BROTHERS' ROOM SERVICE.
The play, by GEORGE ABBOTT had been a smash it (500 performances in its 1937 Broadway run. RKO had paid the huge sum of 255000 dollars for the film rights and the film lost money. I don't know what were the terms for a remake. Anyway, STEP LIVELY is quite funny, and good too.
The author, played by Sinatra, was played by Frank Albertson in 1938 and created on the stage by the great EDDIE ALBERT. It was the first part, in 1953, played by JACK LEMMON. All that makes us wish for a time machine.
The Cahn-Styne songs are successful and Sinatra in good form. The choreography, by Ernst Matray is imaginative. The cinematography by Robert De Grasse is first rate. ADOLPH MENJOU, as the Hotel supervising director, is outstanding, as always. WALTER SLEZAK, as the hotel manager, surpasses himself (the part was played on Broadway by DONALD MAC BRIDE).
EUGENE PALLETTE is an instant nostalgia agent. ANNE JEFFREYS and GLORIA DE HAVEN are beautiful. Who can ask for anything more?
Summary of Step Lively
Gordon Miller (George Murphy) has a hit in the works, especially since he latched onto a playwright whose real talent is his singing voice. Now all that flimflamming Miller must do is put his musical revue on stage before the rubber check underwriting it bounces his troupe from Broadway to the Bowery. As the typewriter-toting crooner, Frank Sinatra steps into his first top billing in this antic backstage musical based on the Broadway/Marx Brothers movie hit Room Service. With a nimble cast (including Gloria DeHaven, Adolphe Menjou and Walter Slezak) and buoyant Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne songs to go with farce, footlights and Frank, what else can a movie do but Step Lively?Step Lively is based on the hit Broadway farce Room Service, which had already served as a Marx Brothers vehicle by the time it got this 1944 re-do. The breathless plot is about a theater producer trying to close a deal while staying ahead of some hand-wringing hotel managers, who would understandably like to be paid for putting up his entourage while rehearsals are in session. A variety of songs and dances are crammed into this labored structure, some of delivered in the sweet youthful tones of Frank Sinatra (as a playwright who also happens to sing like an angel). The impresario is played by George Murphy, a light-footed dancer at his most obnoxious here (he was a future U.S. Senator from California), and the impatient hotel managers are Adolphe Menjou and a deadpan Walter Slezak. The songs are by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, and Sinatra gets to croon "As Long as There's Music," but by the time the show-stoppers from the stage musical take over, the movie has gone way, way over the top. The early look at skinny Frankie is worth it, but you have to have a high tolerance for noise to endure the rest. --Robert Horton
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