Party Girl

When Nicolas Ray (Johnny Guitar, Rebel Without a Cause) turns his talents to a gangster movie, a familiar genre becomes startling and new. Set in 1930s Chicago, Party Girl follows a bum-legged mouthpiece for the mob (Robert Taylor) and a gorgeous, wised-up vamp (Cyd Charisse) who fall in love, try to go straight and head straight for trouble. Ray deepens the drama and heightens the violence with filmmaking artistry that has given Party Girl cult status: a screen painted in sinister ebony and blood red, an urban landscape of shattered glass and shattered bodies, and a scene where a Jean Harlow-besotted mobster learns his idol has married -- and shreds her photo with a rat-a-tat of lead.

• drama