Jr., the son of the noted director, has a bit part as a police lieutenant, and was also the assistant director on the film. Party Girl was Cyd Charisse's last film for MGM after 14 years at the studio. It was also Robert Taylor's next-to-last film in his 25 years at the studio, although it was the last to be shot in Hollywood: his final film, The House of the Seven Hawks was shot in England. Charisse and Taylor were the last two contract stars at MGM. Production The song under the opening credits, "Party Girl", was written by Nicholas Brodszky (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics), and was sung by Tony Martin, who was Cyd Charisse's husband. Robert Taylor's character, Tom Farrell is loosely based on Dixie Davis, who was a lawyer for mob boss Dutch Schultz and later became an informant, although film noir historian Eddie Muller claims that Louie Cuttner, a lawyer for Al Capone, was the model. Coincidentally, director Nicholas Ray would end up hiring Cuttner some years later, having no idea of the connection. Ray was impressed with the way Taylor worked, comparing him favorably with Method actors, citing Taylor's conferring with an osteologist to gather information on how Tom Farrell's limp could be realistically portrayed. According to Eddie Muller, Lee J. Cobb's character, Rico Angelo, is a "not too veiled caricature of Al Capone". The scene where Angelo beats up Frankie Gasto – played uncredited by former wrestler Aaron "Lord Spears" Saxon – was based on an incident supposedly involving Capone; it was also used by David Mamet in his screenplay for the 1987 film The Untouchables. Making Party Girl was not a good experience for Ray. Having had problems with his last two, independently-produced films, and physically debilitated by the experiences, he signed to direct a studio film for MGM in order to get the security of one of the major Hollywood studios, and to work again with an earlier collaborator, Charles Schnee; the two had worked together on 1948's They Live by Night, and Schnee was scheduled to be the producer of Party Girl. MGM was interested in Ray because he had grown up and gone to college in Chicago during Prohibition and could recreate the atmosphere of the time and place, which Ray was eager to do. Schnee, however, was replaced by Joe Pasternak, a specialist in musicals, and Ray discovered that