The setting is supposed to be Chicago during the early 1930s, but the scenario is pure late '50s Hollywood, in widescreen Metrocolor with young Marlon Brando look-alikes stepping out to some splashy stage numbers not far removed from 'West Side Story'. Robert Taylor plays an urbane lawyer forced to defend unscrupulous mobster Lee J. Cobb, and Cyd Charisse is the nightclub dancer of the film's title, a truly tough cookie who, unfortunately, crumbles all too quickly and mends her wicked ways after falling in love with the benevolent attorney. The romantic subplot is strictly by the (melodramatic) numbers, but the Windy City crime angle is never less than entertaining, in particular during the long, climactic shoot-out, with Taylor and Cobb wrestling over a deadly vial of hydrochloric acid.
Review of Party Girl
