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Party Girl (1958)

Party Girl (1958)

GENRESCrime,Drama,Film-Noir,Romance
LANGEnglish
ACTOR
Robert TaylorCyd CharisseLee J. CobbJohn Ireland
DIRECTOR
Nicholas Ray

SYNOPSICS

Party Girl (1958) is a English movie. Nicholas Ray has directed this movie. Robert Taylor,Cyd Charisse,Lee J. Cobb,John Ireland are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1958. Party Girl (1958) is considered one of the best Crime,Drama,Film-Noir,Romance movie in India and around the world.

Lawyer Thomas Farrell has made a career defending crooks in trials. He has never realized that there is a downside to his success, until he meets the dancer Vicki Gaye. She makes him decide to get a better reputation. But mob king Rico Angelo *insists* that he continues his services.

Party Girl (1958) Reviews

  • Neat Ray Film

    harry-762004-07-30

    Most any film directed by Nicholas Ray is usually worth watching, and "Party Girl's" no exception. Ray took here what might have been a quite routine movie under another director and turned it into something quite interesting. He extracted an unusually strong performance from Robert Taylor, who celebrated his final MGM film here, and drew equally effective work from Cyd Charisse, who also demonstrated her formidable dancing skills. Then there was that burly "brute" Lee J. Cobb doing his no-nonsense "gangster thing," which always rang true. Yes, "Party Girl" had lots of bite. A bit of age comparisons are interesting here. Would you believe the actors playing the "handsome leading man" and "sinister character villain" were both born the same year? It was 1911 when Taylor and (gulp) Cobb entered this world. Adding to the mix, Ray was also born the same year, making for a perfect triumvirate. (Trivia note: Taylor and Ray both expired of the same terminal illness.) Charisse showed what a 37-year-old-dancer-in-shape can do. Dig those mobile movements: cool hip action, fast torso turns, strenuous leg extensions and fantastic full-bodied falls. Cyd seemed one of the last holdouts as the film musical glory days "bit the dust." The post-Lewis B. Mayer period allowed for more violence than ever before at MGM, and "Party Girl" had its abundant supply in the final gangland sequences.

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  • A Revelation

    abooboo-22000-01-24

    Interesting movie. Very interesting, though the title is inexcuseably misleading. Nicholas Ray directs and, not surprisingly, makes novel use of shadows, bold colors and wild camera angles. There is a bravura montage of an explosion of mob violence which is sudden and startling. Ray, best known as the director of "Rebel Without a Cause", takes a smart, tough script and; unlike many crime movies which contain similar ingredients but fail to resonate, gives the movie a soul. There's something about its tone and feel, some simmering menace and creeping regret that reminds one of another mob movie which would be released 15 years later: "The Godfather". And as in that classic, the Lawyer/Mob Boss relationship is complex and fascinating. While much of the credit deservedly goes to Ray's maverick methods and genius, the cast is also very good. Robert Taylor never developed the kind of easily identifiable screen persona of a Bogart or Jimmy Stewart, but he was a sturdy leading man who usually served the material and could be depended upon to anchor a film. He pours his heart into this part, his last as an MGM contract player. Cyd Charisse was never known as a great actress but she is capable in her role as a feisty Show Girl, and she gets a good opportunity to show off perhaps the most eye-popping, perfectly sculpted figure in the history of motion pictures. And of course, nobody was better at playing hot-tempered thugs than the great Lee J. Cobb. Turner Classic Movies is such a goldmine. It's so satisfying to see movies, such as this one, that know how to introduce plot points and convincingly tie them up and bring things full circle. "Party Girl" may not be quite a great film, but it is very, very good.

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  • An unbalanced movie; all in all, not bad

    pzanardo2004-05-06

    "Party girl" is a peculiar movie, starting with its title. In fact, the title recalls a light comedy in the style of the 1930/1940s. On the contrary, we deal with a drama/gangster-story of rare toughness (for the standards of the 1950s). The violence of some scenes is really scary. We recognize the hand of director Nicholas Ray. We even have an excellent action sequence which anticipates a famous sequence of "The Godfather". The story is interesting, the cinematography is good and accurate. Unfortunately, this is an unbalanced movie. Vicky, very well played by beautiful Cyd Charisse, is a rather innovative character. But her dance numbers, so patently instrumental to show Cyd's legendary legs and phenomenal dancing skills, are just stuck to the film. A thorough and interesting psychological study of Thomas Farrell (Robert Taylor) is made. But the film is nearly marred by a huge flaw. The badly crippled Farrell has a miracle-surgery in Europe (?) and returns perfectly healed! (alas! that's not yet possible in the 2000s, let alone in the 1930s). And then the formerly crooked corrupt lawyer Farrell turns into the noblest possible person. Come on! At any rate, Taylor gives one of the best performance of his career. John Ireland is a great thug. Lee J. Cobb (as usual looking twenty years older than his actual age) makes an outstanding job as the suave, cruel gangster Rico. The action scenes, though well-filmed, are too scarce for a gangster movie. Besides the magical surgery, other twists of the plot are unlikely. You see, "Party girl" has remarkable merits and flaws, as well. All in all, not a bad movie.

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  • In Defense of Party Girl

    artihcus0222008-09-04

    ''Party Girl'', Ray's final film for a major Hollywood studio(after this he worked with independent producers) is a highly baroque work. Screechingly mannerist in places, occasional head-first dives into camp but also remarkable instances of poetry and subtlety and a highly charged social portrait. It is a very discordant work which is to say that it deliberately skewers audiences expectations of a genre film by working as a genre film but stylized in a manner that the clichés and conventions look highly abstract, not unlike a film by Douglas Sirk. ''Party Girl'' is shot in CinemaScope and Metrocolor, is produced by Joe Pasternak who was in charge of the second-tier MGM unit. The Leonine studio had by the mid-50's devolved into an organization of penny-pinchers and according to Ray, the only reason this film got made was because it's backers wanted to get rid of it's two stars...Cyd Charisse and Robert Taylor so as to exhaust their run of contracted films as quickly as possible. This explains the fact that more than ''Johnny Guitar''(with it's superlative cast of actors), ''Party Girl'' is the closest Ray came to make a B-Film. The storyline is a standard-issue crime drama and it is by a safe distance the most generic of Ray's major films. That it's still a major film is for me little doubt. Though lacking the strength of his early crime films and his 50's melodramas, ''Party Girl'' is still a deeply compelling film about the universality of compromises in society. The title ''Party Girl'' is essentially a slang for prostitute or for being under someone else's thumb. It refers to Cyd Charisse's character Vicki Gaye, a showgirl who works part-time as escort to various underworld types alongside other gals who work at the ''Rooster Folliers''(no joke). But it also includes mob lawyer Tommy Farrel(Robert Taylor) and applies to everyone else. Ray's distaste for plot apparent in all his films is full in abundance here as the generic outline of this story of crooked lawyer turned straight through the power of love takes on several asides. Like the one-scene appearance of a fellow showgirl who's waiting for her man and whose depression, Vicki stifles as a result of habit and accord over the years. The scene where she walks into her roommate's bathroom and finds her swimming literally in a pool of her own blood in a bath-tub is one of Ray's most embedded images even if(in accord with then censorship) the image lasts only a few micro-seconds before a quick fade-away. Much of the secondary section of the film centers on Tommy's relationship with Rico Angelo(Lee J. Cobb in a towering performance) and there's very little plot driving their very powerful scenes. Tension arises from flaming egos by a mob underling played by John Ireland over Tommy's relationship with Vicki. The film's sense of decor and colour is what we'd call now Fassbinderesque. It's pictorially fascinating and the colours are very eye-catching but the underlying design behind it is a sense of decadence of vulgarity. This reflects perhaps that the underlying subtext of this film is less about gangsters than about Hollywood. With Lee J. Cobb's mix of charisma(like Vito Corleone in ''The Godfather'') and crass vulgarity(like Joe Pesci in his films with Scorsese) stand-in for many studio heads of that period and the two musical interludes(numbers is the wrong word for it) by Cyd Charisse while visually striking is poorly choreographed and seems like a parody of the dying MGM Musicals. ''Party Girl'' is a reflection ultimately of what are the results when a great artist and a few good actors are working with conventional plots can achieve. It's a work that's of it's own kind. Not a gangster film entirely, mostly a Film Noir though in colours, visually creative but mostly functional. The decor of the film makes it's genre trappings apparent and obvious revealing and critiquing it's functions yet the scenes between Taylor and Charisse are very much played straight conveying genuine compassion between two characters who have long lost their innocence and are merely doing their best to survive and find a semblance of happiness, a happiness that's threatened not only by the mob but also by the cops who want to use them to catch the bad guys(which has much benefits for their own political careers). What may put off most fans of Nicholas Ray is the graphic violence of the film which is quite unexpected and strong for a film of the 50's. Plenty of bloodletting is on display on this film...of course Ray would say "that's not blood...that's red."

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  • Mobsters in Chicago

    jotix1002005-11-09

    "Party Girl" is a rarely seen movie directed by Nicholas Ray. This 1958 picture mixes styles, and at times, it achieves an originality that only a director like Mr. Ray could give any movie he directed. Basically, we are given a situation in which a lawyer who defends the criminal element is caught in the way he must deal with a situation where he has to turn against his loyalty to his mobster employer because, at last, he sees the light and the consequence of his actions. Robert Taylor plays the lawyer, Tommy Farrell. This was his last film that marks the end of his long and successful association with MGM. Robert Taylor makes an appealing Farrell, and even though one realizes he is defending people that are at the margin of the law, his character shows redeeming qualities that make him merit our sympathy. The actor is perfect in the role. Cyd Charisse playing a dramatic role is a surprise. In fact, she was always seen in musical roles because of her talent as a dancer. In the film she plays a chorus girl that suddenly is elevated to a starring role in front of her former colleagues because of the influence Tommy Farrell had in those circles. Ms. Charisse holds her own against an accomplished actor like Mr. Taylor. This is one of her best opportunities in the movies. Lee J. Cobb is seen as the criminal boss Rico, who has a tremendous power over Tommy Farrell. Mr. Cobb shows he could do anything in movies as well as on the stage. John Ireland plays the evil Louis Canetto. This is a film that fans of the work of Nicholas Ray shouldn't miss.

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