I guess I saw this when it was released in 1958 because I seemed to remember Robert Taylor and his cane, and Lee J. Cobb clobbering somebody over the head with a gold-plated miniature baseball bat or whatever it was. The sudden eruption of violence in that scene was shocking at the time. It's since been imitated in, oh, "The Untouchables." And there's a similar scene in "Some Like It Hot." Seeing it now is something of a disappointment. Everything about the movie seems encrusted with time. I know it was directed by Nicholas Ray and I know he directed "They Live By Night", which was a nearly perfect snapshot of the time. That's precisely where this film fails -- fails distractingly.The titles tell us "Chicago: The Early 1930s." Yet what we see on screen is Hollywood: 1958. It's all splashy and colorful, and the city might as well be Caracas, Venezuela for all the local color we get. The men have slicked-backed hair, wear single-breasted powder blue suits with broad shoulders. Nobody wears a hat. Whatever appeal Robert Taylor has for women eludes me entirely. He's dark, corrugated, and scowls constantly. Well, sometimes he tries to laugh and one hears the creaking of long unused facial muscles.The ladies wear gaudy crimson gowns and costumes from a stage show, and their hair is Sidney Guilaroffed to a turn. No festoons of necklaces, no waistless dresses without boobs. Not a cloche hat in sight but plenty of bare legs. That brings us to Cyd Charisse with whom I am deeply in love, at least with her oh-so-supple undercarriage. She's beautiful and her acting talent is modest. She's a dancer, an extremely demanding profession, and she doesn't get to stretch her chops here except in two numbers, miserably choreographed, that don't do justice to her talent.The plot follows a familiar formula. You know the one about the gunfighter who tries to hang up his gunbelt but circumstances draw him back into another encounter? This is it.

Quite possibly Nicholas Ray's most visually eloquent film, the poorly- named Party Girl focuses not on the Cyd Charisse titular character but her romantic interest, mob lawyer Tom Farrell, played with great intensity and dedication by Robert Taylor. Charisse is even more luminous than usual thanks in part to the mesmerizing lighting and camera work utilized by Ray in two major dance numbers obviously included to showcase MGM's most talented dancer. However, Ray was also able to elicit a rather touching albeit somewhat unrealistic performance from Charisse in playing a lonely showgirl drawn to Taylor's disfigured lawyer trapped in the world of defending known criminals.Such a story had been done before many different ways, yet under Ray's direction the film achieves a certain sense of nobility and appreciation. It is not flashy, but not boring either. It is, as much of Ray's work was at the time, workman-like and beautifully crafted. Compared to much of the other features released at the time, Ray's films stand out today as rising above the material he was given to work with.

Given the talent involved Party Girl is something of a damp squib that falls between several stools - gangster, musical, thriller, romance - and fails to satisfy in any. Looking at the cast prior to seeing the thing it was clear that the best actor by a country mile was Lee J. Cobb but he is strangely ineffectual here despite being allowed the odd bellow and snarl. John Ireland who showed some promise in All The King's Men in 1949 was phoning it in by 1958 which leaves the two leads. Robert Taylor was always slightly wooden but he makes a decent stab and whilst Cyd Charisse would never have claimed to be anything more than a fine dancer she too turns in a half-decent performance. On the whole Nicholas Ray fails to pull the strands together though it's quite possible that MGM, cognizant of their success three years earlier with Love Me Or Leave Me which blended singing and shooting albeit in a real life bio-pic of Ruth Etting, thought they might get lucky again if they threw in some production dance numbers midway through a gangster movie. Alas, lightning doesn't strike twice.

The last film noir I saw was "Party Girl" (1958), directed by Nicholas Ray and stars Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse and Lee J. Cobb.The screenplay (by George Wells) is hardly anything unusual: Lawyer Thomas Farrell (Taylor) has made a career of defending gangsters and crooks in trials. But when he meets showgirl Vicki Gaye (Charisse) at a mob party held by racketeer Rico Angelo (Cobb) that he starts to come out of his shell. Farrell tries to quit, but Rico, whose partner is going to be indicted and needs Farrell more than ever, threatens to hurt Gaye badly if he quits.The rather passé script, however, is enlivened to tremendous effect, not just by Jeff Alexander's lush, Jazzy score, and Robert J. Bronner's vibrant cinematography, but cult director Nicholas Ray brings a measured grace to the proceedings that really lifts the motion picture out of the ordinary. Robert Taylor is very good as the lawyer but Lee J. Cob, as a Capone like mobster chews up every scene he's in with vigour. Although Chaisse hasn't much to do and John Ireland is slightly two dimensional, this is a classy, exciting film noir deserves to be ranked among Ray's best.