Review of The Third Girl from the Left

Dory Previn wrote the teleplay (and the songs) for this Hugh Hefner-produced television drama about an aging chorus girl (Kim Novak, looking stunning) coming to a crossroads in her life: her thirteen-year relationship with a popular lounge singer is going nowhere, and the club where she works is going topless. What's a classy hoofer to do? Kim takes up with a strapping, 23-year-old delivery boy who promises her the moon, which lights a fire (finally) under her boyfriend. With gritty New York City locales and fabulous Gayne Rescher photography, this 'woman's picture' certainly looks terrific. It also features one of Novak's best performances, a fine job from a singing Tony Curtis, and lots of terrific character actors (as well as Hefner's then-squeeze Barbi Benton) in supporting roles. The sub-plot involving handsome lunk Michael Brandon doesn't really work (his early scenes with Kim are totally fabricated), though it gets the picture where it needs to go, and the freeze-frame ending is downbeat yet provocative.