In his magisterial work on Nicholas Ray, NICHOLAS RAY, AN AMERICAN JOURNEY, surely one of the greatest works on film studies, Bernard Eisenschitz writes that PARTY GIRL (Nicholas Ray, 1958) was met with a ‘unanimously condescending critical reception in the United States’ and that French critics, ‘adopting an extremist stance within AUTEURIST theory, were of the opinion that Ray had here perfected his method. Time and distance permit one to see both points of view and for me now it falls somewhere in between.
Surely, the film’s greatest pleasures are those provided by an auteurist lens: the originality of the CinemaScope compositions, the architectural use of space, the striking and dramatic uses of colour within the colour scheme (from red, to blue, to green); the persistence of themes of alienation – Vicky Gaye (Cyd Charisse) is the Party Girl who sells herself for money; Thomas Farrell (Robert Taylor) is the gangland lawyer who sells his skills to the higher bidder. Their tired worn impassive faces evoke the toil this has taken on them. Ray uses their impassivity to evoke life leaving substance; until they fall in love of course and love re-ignites, redeems and changes. All the compromises of before, both necessary and deadening, can be cast aside…though Ray being Ray, compromise, corruption, sell-outs…well, that’s life’s daily challenges.
One of the fascinating things about this film is how the mise-en-scène embroiders that impassive central duo – and not just with composition, camera, movement and colour – but with other traditions of acting: the ebullient ‘method’ of Lee J. Cobb and Corey Allen, John Ireland’s liveliness – all immensely watchable though only Ireland feels true; and this juxtaposed with much of the rest of the cast, in a polished style that would become standard TV issue. It’s worth noting that Ray is full of praise for Taylor, stating that he worked like ‘a true method actor’. What is evident to me is that Ray uses him most effectively, though whenever he says a line, I can always think of five ways of being more interesting with them, and ten stars who could double that number. The Warner Archive print is gorgeous; the film’s central equivalence between selling sex and selling legal advice is one that stays with me. Ray is not responsible for filming the musical numbers (choreographed and directed unimaginatively by Robert Sidney), a pity, as the film would have been better had they been more coherently, visually and thematically integrated into the rest of the film. The Warner Archive print is gorgeous. The film is set in 30s Chicago though the viewer only knows because they’re told; what they see is pure 50’s.
José Arroyo
