I wanted to but couldn't!

Great Film overall

Admirable film.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I must admit, I'm baffled. How did this story become such an acclaimed Broadway musical and successful film musical? Perhaps the sheer presence of Robert Morse? That's about the only thing I can figure (although others have reprised the role on Broadway successfully).There are some things I like about this film (aside from Morse). Michele Lee is great as the love interest; wish she had done more films. It's nice to see Rudy Vallee, not that he is any great shakes here. I really did enjoy Anthony Teague as the ultimate kiss-up; a really bright performance.But aside from that, nothing. It's basically a one joke film (kissing ass to get ahead), and a one-notable-song musical ("I Believe In You"). It took me over 30 years to finally watch this film; must have been my intuition; I'll never watch it again.

Cynics may say that the film merely copied the play, which was ALREADY a smash. Bad argument. Whether this film merely copies a superb piece of entertainment which already existed, or takes an existing work to the next level is irrelevant. It is superb and it holds up extremely well. Morse is nothing less than brilliant as both the lead character and the "master of ceremonies" who is always talking directly to the audience. I have seen this at least half a dozen times and every time I have to ask myself, why was Morse not known for other roles aside from this? He had talent. It is one of those odd Hollywood quirks that sometimes an actor will become known for just one role. In this case one is more than enough. Michelle Lee is not only glamorous but intelligent, a mix that was rare in the era. Those same cynics will tell you that mores have changed and the workplace is not like this anymore. They are wrong. The same games exist, the rules have changed slightly. Guaranteed entertainment.

A few notes of full disclosure here: 1) I love musical theatre 2) I'm old enough to remember this show when it was on Broadway.OK, now: This isn't really a movie. It's a film of a stage show. With the exception of a couple location shots of New York City 40 years ago, it's almost exactly the Bob Fosse staged production that swept the Tony Awards in 1962 and is one of only seven musicals in 90 years to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Robert Morse, Rudy Vallee, Ruth Kobart and Sammy Smith reprise their stage roles as the ambitious corporate ladder climber, the pompous executive, his dictatorial secretary and the middle manager who "plays it the company way". Michelle Lee is Morse's love interest, and Maureen Arthur channels Judy Holiday as Vallee's ditzy paramour. The musical numbers are transferred almost verbatim from stage to screen, and if you're not familiar with the show, you won't be disappointed that a few of them were left out.In sum, you have to be ready to accept this as more a stage play than a cinematic experience; but if you are in the mood for a true period piece that truly reflects the American musical theatre of the past century and is unlikely to be replicated or even approximated on the screen in the foreseeable future, you could do a lot worse than watching this on a commercial free channel or grabbing the DVD for an afternoon with your teens, especially if any of them have thoughts of a career on the stage.

Next to Guys and Dolls, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying is Frank Loesser's best known and best loved musical. It did have the longest run of any of his shows, 1417 performances from 1961 to 1965.Though Hollywood was smart enough to retain Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee in their roles from Broadway, the only flaw with this film is that I do so wish Charles Nelson Reilly had repeated his role as Bud Frump, the rival to Robert Morse's J. Pierrepont Finch the upwardly mobile executive. It was the breakthrough part for Reilly in his career and it would have been nice had it been retained.Frank Loesser did it all in this show, book, music, and lyrics in a wonderful satire on the mores of the business world. How To Succeed is one of the few Broadway musicals that succeeds more on its book than anything else. The songs from this production are more functional than anything else, hits though some of them are. Unlike Guys and Dolls, Where's Charley, The Most Happy Fella there are no really stand alone ballads that could be enjoyed outside the context of the film or the stage show.Robert Morse never got a role like this one, the man who starts out as a window washer and moves up the corporate ladder through careful planning and a lot of nerve. He follows carefully the advice of a book with the title of the show. By the way in the film it is Morse's voice used in the narrative as the character reads from the book. On stage the prerecorded voice of Walter Cronkite was used.Rudy Vallee is the company president and Loesser took advantage of Vallee's unique personality and style with his songs and character. A lot of people who did not grow up with Rudy Vallee today would probably not get a lot of the inside humor. Vallee's big song is Grand Old Ivy and the humor of it would be lost today unless you knew that Vallee had recorded in his career such song hits as The Maine Stein Song, Betty Coed, and The Whiffenpoof Song, back when he was the reigning singer of the day.Though the jokes about Vallee are dated, the overall humor of How To Succeed was ahead of its times. Can you imagine had this musical premiered in the Reagan years? It would have been deified by all those motivational speakers that started to become popular then.For that reason How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying is as fresh as when Frank Loesser put those first notes down for this wonderful show.