After the disastrous production of Wind Across the Everglades (1958) which saw him being fired by the studio before the film's completion, Nicholas Ray rebounded with Party Girl, a film about a mob lawyer who falls in love with a showgirl. The lawyer, Thomas Farrell, has spent his life keeping the worst mobsters in America out of jail. However, his life is hollow and empty. But when he meets a showgirl named Vicki (played by the stunning Cyd Charisse) he decides that he wants to leave the mob and start a new life with her. But, of course, nobody just leaves the mob. Mob boss Rico Angelo (loosely based on gangsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano) threatens to hurt Vicki if Farrell abandons him. But I'm just recounting the plot. The real meat of the film is found in Ray's direction, Robert J. Bronner's gob-smacking color CinemaScope cinematography, and two musical dance numbers with Charisse. What it lacks in plot it more than makes up for in visual flare. Party Girl easily ranks with In a Lonely Place (1950) and Johnny Guitar (1954) as Ray's most beautiful films.
7/10
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