Nicholas Ray's highly stylized treatment of the gangster film noir has won Party Girl a cult following. Against an obscure locale, almost arbitrarily tagged "Chicago in the early '30s," Ray creates a surreal atmosphere of exoticism and violence. Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse are well cast against type as a gangland lawyer and a lounge singer-party girl who find each other and, together, rebel against an underworld "family," with head mobster Lee J. Cobb as the formidable father.