Cyd is a party girl .... Sterling is Johnny Guitar

Deliriously camp trailer for a favourite meller, 1958's PARTY GIRL from MGM, with Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse (who gets to dance too) as the party girl in thrall to hoods led by Lee J. Cobb and John Ireland. What lifts this above the average is that is a Nicholas Ray movie with great imagery - a noir in lurid colour. When I first saw it as a kid that scene where Cobb threatens Cyd with the bottle of acid, which he pours over the christmas decorations and we see them melt was terrific - of course in the shootout the acid goes over his own face .... 
PLUS - the trailer for Ray's 1954 classic JOHNNY GUITAR - with all its highlights here. This, as per other posts was the first film I ever saw aged 8 - I was agog - what an introduction to the vivid world of cinema! 

A '50s favourite: Quentin Durward

We had another look at one of my 1950s childhood favourites from those Sunday afternoon matinees: QUENTIN DURWARD, from 1955, here is what I wrote about it some years ago.: 

For me this is the high point of the MGM costume drama of the '50s, (as is Fritz Lang's MOONFLEET, also '55 and the camp delights that are THE PRODIGAL and JUPITER'S DARLING). 
I saw QUENTIN DURWARD as a child and loved it, it was perfect on the big screen - that climax on the bell ropes of the burning tower, the lady being stripped to her undergarments by the dastardly villains, all that derring-do among the chateaus of France, and that great supporting cast of Robert Morley as the devious king, George Cole, Wilfrid Hyde White, Ernest Thesiger etc. but the two stars are Robert Taylor, then perhaps in decline, and Kay Kendall, on the ascent after her English roles (like GENEVIEVE, SIMON AND LAURA) - she would go on to do three perfect comedy roles for stylish directors (Cukor, Minnelli and Donen in LES GIRLS, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE and ONCE MORE WITH FEELING) before her untimely death from leukemia in September 1959. 

She is perfect here in the medieval setting clutching her jewel box and fending off the bandits - it all played out perfectly on the big screen - while Taylor has great dignity and plays his ageing knight ruefully aware of his own mortality. Its all just a sheer delight I never tire of, at least I have a Cinemascope print, its usually panned and scanned on television. Director: Richard Thorpe, produced by Pandro S Berman, who produced Kendall's other MGM films.
Kay is somewhat of a patron saint here at The Projector .... as per all those posts on her, see label. 
Robert Taylor too had a late renaissance here with these costumers like IVANHOE, QUO VADIS. VALLEY OF THE KINGS and QUENTIN DURWARD. (KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE is not in the same league). 

New year's eve at the movies: Party Girl

PARTY GIRL - Nick Ray's 1958 melodrama plays like a '40s noir made in the '50s in colour and Cinemascope. It is full of striking images and vivid colours showing how the mobs in Chicago in the '30s operate. Lee J Cobb is of course terrific as Rico, the mobster with everyone in his pay, including Robert Taylor as the lawyer who gets his hoods acquitted and who long ago sold out for big bucks. Taylor is crippled and uses his limp to work the jury. He and Rico grew up as tough kids but their paths diverged and then Taylor ends up working for Rico....

Showgirl Vicki Gaye is also crippled, emotionally - she never lets men get too close and they eventually go away as she tells another showgirl. She though turns up as escort at various mob functions and collects a hundred dollars a time. One of Rico's underlings though, John Ireland, is taking too unhealthy an interest in her - and she uses Taylor to escort her out of one party. They get to know each other and start to fall in love. He uses his influence with Rico to get her a featured spot at the nightclub, so we get to see two Charisse numbers - where, as Pauline Kael once memorably put it, "Cyd Charisse is benumbed until she unhinges those legs". - though these are not in the '30 style but in that of the hip '50s!

The plot twists and turns, Taylor goes to Europe to have operations on his legs, the police are trying to finish the mobs who are busy on killing each other - Corey Allen (whose car went over the cliff in Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE) is a vicious hood here. Taylor and Charisse realise that selling their pride to the mob costs too high a price. Will they get out in time before Rico turns on them, or Ireland whom Taylor got off on a murder rap turns nasty?

It all climaxes at New Year's Eve at a party were Rico has Taylor and Charisse in his power. His threats to have Taylor's new leg damaged with a crowbar have not worked, but what if acid gets thrown in the face of the lovely Vicki? He demonstrates what acid does to a red paper decoration. The police arrive as Ireland grabs the bottle of acid and closes in on Vicki. Then Rico himself gets the bottle before spilling it on himself and exiting through the plate glass window. The sirens screech as our leads walk away ... That is the plot in a nutshell but it looks good, the colours and images are striking. Cobb has a field day chomping the scenery, Taylor has another good late '50s role (like his QUENTIN DURWARD and ROGUE COP) playing a man discovering his inner strength and Charisse as ever looks and sounds sensational. I enjoyed all this when I saw it as a kid, the acid melting the christmas decoration was very impressive!



Ray had his best era in the '50s what with JOHNNY GUITAR with Crawford, the endlessly iconic classic REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE with Dean, BIGGER THAN LIFE with James Mason, his Jesse James film with Robert Wagner and Jeff Hunter and this MGM melodrama with its bright vivid colours. But for Charisse those big musicals she made her name in (SINGING IN THE RAIN, THE BANDWAGON, BRIGADOON, ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, SILK STOCKINGS) were on the wane so she featured in dramas like this and TWILIGHT FOR THE GODS with Rock Hudson. The 60s brought some further acting roles in films like MAROC 7 and THE SILENCERS and back with Minnelli for the stylish TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. She featured in lots of live shows and appeared in London in the 80s in a revival of CHARLEY GIRL - one simply had to go and see the divine Cyd dance on stage ...

Weekend matinee choices

The perfect rainy Saturday afternoon movie

QUENTIN DURWARD, from 1955 - for me the high point of the MGM costume drama of the '50s, (as is Fritz Lang's MOONFLEET, also '55). I saw this as a child and loved it, it was perfect on the big screen - that climax on the bell ropes of the burning tower, the lady being stripped to her undergarments by the dastardly villains, all that derring-do among the chateaus of France, and that great supporting cast of Robert Morley as the devious Louis, George Cole, Wilfrid Hyde White etc. but the two stars are Robert Taylor, then perhaps in decline, and Kay Kendall, on the ascent after her English roles - she would go on to do 3 perfect comedy roles for Cukor, Minnelli and Donen in LES GIRLS, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE and ONCE MORE WITH FEELING before her untimely death from leukemia in 1959. She is perfect here in the medieval setting clutching her jewel box and fending off the bandits, while Taylor has great dignity and plays his ageing knight ruefully aware of his own mortality. Its all just a sheer delight I never tire of, at least I have a Cinemascope print, its usually panned and scanned on television. Director: Richard Thorpe, produced by Pandro S Berman, who produced Kendall's other MGM films.

The perfect Sunday afternoon movie

THE WAY TO THE STARS, 1945. I love English movies of the '40s, and this is a prime example. Its up there with IN WHICH WE SERVE or THIS HAPPY BREED showing the fortitude of life in wartime with stiff upper lips covering depths of emotion. This one is by Terence Rattigan and directed by Asquith, and captures the war era perfectly, set as it is on an airfield and the adjoining hotel run by Toddy - Rosamund John as the quintessential English gentlewoman (rather like Celia Johnson). Toddy marries airman Michael Redgrave and they have a baby - but he is a casualty of war and Toddy bravely carries on, observed by friend John Mills - but he does not wish the same fate on Renee Asherson so their romance flounders until Toddy puts him right. Then there are the americans, including Bonar Colleano and Douglass Montgomery who becomes friendly with Toddy. This movie must surely have influenced Schlesinger's YANKS, whose Richard Gere even resembles Montgomery! Add in Joyce Carey as the snobbish hotel resident who gets her just comeuppence, and a young Jean Simmons (16) who sings that song "let him go let him tarry". It all adds up to stirring deeply emotional stuff, ending as Toddy closes the hotel for the night, looking up at those stars. THIS HAPPY BREED, 2000 WOMEN, THE GENTLE SEX, I LIVE IN GROSVENOR SQUARE and Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER and THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS are more of the same.... then there are those Michael Powells like I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, BLACK NARCISSUS, A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, Carol Reeds, David Leans and Basil Dearden's sumptuous SARABAND FOR DEAD LOVERS with that dream pair of Stewart Granger and Joan Greenwood and the malevolent performance of Flora Robson, of which more later.