Party Girl

“There was theater (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). From now on, there are movies. And the art of film is Nicholas Ray.” This is how Jean-Luc Godard wrote in a famous attempt to place Ray at the top of the pantheon of film art. The somewhat overlooked 'The Company Girl' is an excellent example of why: A wild mix of noir, melodrama and musical. In Prohibition-era Chicago, showgirl Vicki Gaye (Cyd Charisse) works at a nightclub owned by gangster boss Rico Angelos. Here she falls in love with his lawyer Thomas Farrell (Robert Taylor), but at the same time it becomes harder for both of them to escape the gangster world. Charisse's dance numbers break into the narrative like glittering pauses between the otherwise violent scenes. With lavish club sequences and blatantly artificial backdrops, 'The Party Girl' is a final piece of splendor from the old Hollywood studio system, created at a time when it was already beginning to crack.

Directed by: Nicholas Ray
Starring: Cyd Charisse, Robert Taylor, Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland
Country/year: 1958
Running time: 99 min.
Formato: 35mm
Language: English Dialogue
Age limit: Allowed for children over 15
Original title: Party Girl

Part of the series: When film noir got colors
What happens to the shadows of noir films when they are suddenly surrounded by expressive colors? When pastel colors do not soften the obscure crime tales, but, on the contrary, make them sharper and more hard-hitting? This film series revolves around a special moment in postwar American film history, when film noir broke out in color.