How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying **** (1967, Robert Morse, Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee) – Classic Movie Review 5447

Writer/ producer/ director David Swift’s 1967 American musical comedy film How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a most enjoyable, very jolly movie of a great Broadway show about the New York window cleaner called J Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) who consults the title book and climbs to the top of the corporate ladder ultra-fast by crawling round the boss and elbowing out his rival, the top man’s annoying nephew Bud Frump (Anthony Teague).

Morse (reprising his Broadway role) as the smug charmer and Rudy Vallee (also reprising his Broadway role) as the corporate boss Jasper B Biggley are both simply tremendous in show-stopping performances and make the whole show go with a real zing.

The film is the movie debut of Michele Lee, also reprising her Broadway role as secretary Rosemary Pilkington whom Finch begins to fall in love with.

The amusing script hits the spot with its brightly satirical tone and Dale Moreda’s choreography, re-creating Bob Fosse’s originals, is very lively indeed.

The stupendous Frank Loesser tunes include the evergreen classics ‘I Believe in You’ (sung by the hero to the mirror) and ‘Brotherhood of Man’. However, many songs from the stage version are cut, most notably all of Rosemary Pilkington’s solos.

Also in the cast are Michele Lee, Maureen Arthur, Murray Matheson, Kay Reynolds, Sammy Smith, John Myhers, Jeff DeBenning, Robert Q Lewis, Ruth Kobart, Erin O’Brien-Moore and Virginia Sale.

Robert Morse (18 May 1931 – 20 April 2022) starred in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, both the 1961 original Broadway production, winning a Tony Award, and its 1967 film. He died at his home in Los Angeles on 20 April 2022, aged 90.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5447

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