Once an aspiring Broadway hoofer, Mavis is now merely trying to make ends meet, while also struggling with a personal relationship with a career-frustrated musician boyfriend.

With the glum Mrs. Fraser accompanying on piano, Mavis tries to teach tap to a class of colorful women and a solitary man, the bashful Geoffrey.

While dealing with their personal issues, the "Mavis Turner Tappers" end up performing a glamorous, glitzy number on stage, flawed but rewarding to all.

Originally Stepping Out was to be released in the spring of 1991 to coincide with Minnelli's New York concert stage show Live from Radio City Music Hall, but because of a corporate restructuring at Paramount Pictures, the film's opening was delayed until the fall of 1991.

[5] In reviewing the film for The New York Times, critic Stephen Holden wrote: "Because the movie adaptation was conceived as a star vehicle for Ms. Minnelli, the actress is given two solo dance turns, choreographed by Danny Daniels, in addition to her acting chores.

Both numbers jerk the movie, which is never particularly believable, into the realm of pure show-business fantasy, while allowing the star to demonstrate real pizzazz as a modern-day vaudevillian trouper.

"[3] Variety, in its 1991 review, described the film: "It's Liza-as-you-love-her in Stepping Out, a modest heartwarmer about a bunch of suburban left-feeters getting it together for a charity dance spot.