STEP BY STEP (1946)

RKO Radio Pictures, 61m 51s

A lively film noir programmer from good ol' RKO, director Phil Rosen's STEP BY STEP makes for an entertaining Saturday afternoon diversion. Set along California's coastline, this taut noir plunges the viewer into post-WWII malaise, with rogue Germans still very much a nuisance to American ideals. Stuart Palmer's screenplay, based on an original story by George Callahan, exploits the concern that Nazism has metabolized into the country's social and political structures. In its implication that evil never can be entirely defeated (it just regroups and starts over), the atmosphere advanced in STEP BY STEP is no place for the weak-kneed or the uninformed. Though the war may be over, the isotropic tension of aggressive Nazism might manifest itself in person, via listening devices or through one's own compromised employee.

At his seaside home, Senator Remmy (Harry Harvey) suggests his newly-hired secretary Evelyn Smith (Anne Jeffreys) enjoys the beach while he awaits the arrival of James Blackton (Addison Richards), a government operative who possesses a list of 200 Germans whose day-to-day actions deserve monitoring. On her way to the beach, Evelyn draws the hungry eye of Johnny Christopher (Lawrence Tierney), recently discharged from the United States Marine Corps after being stranded in the South Pacific. The two have a friendly conversation, but nothing happens beyond talk. Evelyn returns to the Remmy beach house and eventually is followed by Johnny, who is floored to be greeted by another blonde (Myrna Dell) who claims to be Evelyn!

STEP BY STEP qualifies as a film noir thanks mostly to its unstable environment where the order of things is questioned and ordinary people inspire doubt. Our lead protagonist Johnny stands among a vast array of noir characters who served their country only to encounter continued opposition back in the states. This theme pervades the narrative early when a motorcycle traffic cop (Pat Flaherty) accuses Johnny of being a shell-shocked veteran whose perceptions cannot be taken seriously. An unhelpful public servant, the cop does not buy into the former Marine's story and is outwitted easily by the Nazis led by Von Dorn (Lowell Gilmore) who have assembled at the Remmy estate. The battle-tested noir doppelgänger theme is emphasized by this German crew that substitutes for Remmy and Evelyn without much resistance. Effectively the Nazis put Johnny and Evelyn on the run, with the couple sought by both police and criminals.

Particularly for film noirs of this period, the woman of mystery is one of the accepted genre conceits. It is hinted at very early in the proceedings that Evelyn Smith might not be who she claims to be in terms of work history. On a related note, she is an outsider from the east. Though not a femme fatale per se, from the opening segment there is question as to who she is and why she suddenly has become a secretary for Senator Remmy. In fact she eventually reveals she was selected for the job based on false credentials, and thus never should have been in a position to attract Johnny with her fetching swimwear. Interestingly, Evelyn proves she is capable of spider woman detail when she tricks the chauffeur Norton (Phil Warren) into admitting his treachery just before he gets iced.

The requisite heterosexual union (well, sort of)

Ultimately the Nazi fugitives are expunged as Hollywood conventions of the time required, although the cathartic concluding sequence strains credulity to the limit, with law enforcement firepower responding to a wildly implausible S.O.S. signal engineered by Johnny. Overall the plot seems heavily dependent upon coincidence rather than the preferred film noir power of fate. STEP BY STEP reunites Lawrence Tierney and Anne Jeffreys from DILLINGER (1945), though it should be mentioned this vehicle is hardly the forum for the unique talent of the real-life bad boy Tierney, who was so effective the following year as the heavies in THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE (1947) and BORN TO KILL (1947). Myrna Dell's character Gretchen is branded repeatedly as far less attractive than Evelyn, as if Dell were some sort of ugly duckling. Not only are Nazis engaged in nefarious activities that threaten our basic freedoms, the viewer is to understand their women are homely to boot.

This Blu-ray presentation is derived from outstanding source material and looks smooth and crisp in motion, framed at the original theatrical scope of 1.37:1. Two bonus features are selectable. The first is THE TRANS-ATLANTIC MYSTERY (1932, Warner Bros., 21m 40s) with Ray Collins, who would later appear as Boss Jim Gettys in CITIZEN KANE (1941). John Hamilton from STEP BY STEP is also part of the cast. The second supplement is “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery” (1946, Warner Bros., 7m 33s) a surreal animated short starring Daffy Duck.