''Playgirl'' is a 1954 American film noir crime film directed by Joseph Pevney and starring

Shelley Winters Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned seven decades. She appeared in numerous films. She won Academy Awards for ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ''A Patch o ...

, Barry Sullivan and

Colleen Miller Colleen Joy Miller (born November 10, 1932) is an American actress. She starred in several films, such as the Westerns '' Gunfight at Comanche Creek'' (1963) and '' Four Guns to the Border'' (1954). Early life The daughter of Elias and Lillian ...

. It was produced and released by

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

Plot

Innocent and attractive Phyllis Matthews leaves her

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

home for

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and an ambition to become a model. Fran Davis, a

nightclub singer A nightclub act is a production, usually of nightclub music or comedy, designed for performance at a nightclub, a type of drinking establishment, by a nightclub performer such as a nightclub singer or nightclub dancer, whose performance may ...

, welcomes her to town, where she quickly meets magazine writer Tom Bradley and his editor, Mike Marsh. Fran is having a fling with Mike, who is married but either unable or unwilling to get a divorce. Warned about life in the big city and how different it can be, Phyllis finds out first-hand in a hurry, wealthy Ted Andrews insulting her by offering $100 to spend the night. Phyllis's beauty gives the magazine guys an idea. They pose her for the cover of their next issue, which makes Phyllis an overnight sensation. Fran, however, becomes morose, then angry, believing Phyllis is trying to seduce both Mike and Tom, and becoming desperate about her own future. A fit of anger results in an armed Fran accidentally shooting Mike, and the scandal envelops Phyllis, ruining her reputation and new career. She leaves for home, sadder but wiser.

Cast

as Fran * Barry Sullivan as Mike Marsh *

as Phyllis Matthews * Richard Long as Barron Courtney *

Gregg Palmer Palmer Edwin Lee (January 25, 1927 – October 31, 2015), known by his stage name Gregg Palmer, was an American film and television actor. Born in San Francisco, California, Palmer served in the United States Army Air Corps as a cryptographer i ...

as Tom Burton *

Kent Taylor Kent Taylor (born Louis William Weiss; May 11, 1907 – April 11, 1987) was an American actor of film and television. Taylor appeared in more than 110 films, the bulk of them B-movies in the 1930s and 1940s, although he also had roles in more pr ...

as Ted Andrews * Jacqueline deWit as Greta Marsh * Dave Barry as Jonathan *

Philip Van Zandt Philip Van Zandt (October 4, 1904 – February 15, 1958), sometimes billed as Phil Van Zandt, was a Dutch-American actor of stage, film, and television. He made nearly 250 film and television appearances between 1939 and 1958. Life and career ...

as Lew Martel * James McCallion as Paul * Paul Richards as Wilbur * Helen Beverly as Anne * Myrna Hansen as Linda *

Mara Corday Mara Corday (born Marilyn Joan Watts; January 3, 1930) is an American showgirl, model, actress, ''Playboy'' Playmate, and 1950s cult figure. Early life Corday was born in Santa Monica, California. Wanting a career in films, she came to Hollywoo ...

as Pam

Reception

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' gave the film a mixed review, "''Playgirl'', at the Mayfair, is a routine, unconvincing case history about some of New York's plushier pitfalls. Shelley Winters, Barry Sullivan and a newcomer named Colleen Miller head the cast of this Universal-International drama that for all its pretensions of sophisticated insight seems as old and familiar as the very hills ... Inspired performances could hardly be expected from such contrived material, although the Blees scenario provides a smattering of pungent dialogue and one fine, ugly encounter between a sadistic restaurateur and a society weakling."''The New York Times''
Film review, May 15, 1954. Accessed: July 25, 2013.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Playgirl 1954 films 1954 crime drama films American crime drama films American black-and-white films Film noir Universal Pictures films Films directed by Joseph Pevney Films set in New York City 1950s English-language films 1950s American films