As a lifelong Sinatra fan who has seen all the movies and owns all the CDs I have no hesitation in rating this the best film he made in the 40s, his best in fact until Meet Danny Wilson right at the start of the 50s. In fact it's right up there with the two great musicals he made in the 50s, Young At Heart and High Society and it's no coincidence that all three had rock-solid scripts, had in fact begun life in each case as non-musical dramas/comedies. Young At Heart was a successful novel by Fanny Hurst which became a fine drama, Four Daughters; High Society was a play, The Philadelphia Story, tailored especially for Katherine Hepburn who played it both on Broadway and the subsequent film version and Step Lively began as a farce on Broadway and became a film vehicle for the Marx Brothers. This means that Sinatra isn't asked to carry the film and we can enjoy George Murphy as a sort of pre-Bilko complete with two sidekicks, Wally Brown and Alan Carny, in a running battle with Walter Slezak, Adolph Menjou and Eugene Palette. The six great songs provided by Jule Syne and Sammy Cahn are a bonus even those in which Sinatra does not feature (Ask The Madam). Sinatra is allowed to develop his personality into something - albeit only a little - more than the gauche 'himself' he played in Higher And Higher and once he got to MGM he was back to gauche. I suspect that Anchors Aweigh would seem very dated today despite a fine score, The Kissing Bandit was always a joke with Take Me Out To The Ballgame only a notch better and I've always found On The Town vastly overrated which leaves It Happened In Brooklyn as the best of a mediocre lot. Step Lively - seen today, May, 2008, retains its freshness and failed completely to disappoint.
Review of Step Lively
