The Third Girl from the Left Reviews

After 1960, Kim Novak lost interest in being a movie star and her film appearances became sporadic. By 1973 she hadn’t made a movie in four years. Then she appeared in Tales That Witness Madness and this film, her television debut. While her performance was self-conscious and monotone (essentially banging on the same neurotic key of fluttering, hand waving, and anxious breathing) in Madness, she’s touchingly vulnerable and real in The Third Girl from the Left.

While the film is not great, undiscovered treasure, it’s easy to see Novak’s attraction to the material. Parts of the Third Girl feel ripped straight from her life. The story of an aging chorus girl who realizes her career and romantic life are going nowhere, life has passed her by, and her choices and chances are quickly diminishing. There’s a poignancy built into the part that Novak tears into with her cool, cerebral detachment.

The opening credits are played over a tight close-up of Novak’s face as she slowly transforms from a real person into an idealized sex symbol. The fetishistic quality of it is pronounced enough, but once you factor in Novak’s reputation as a screen goddess an extra layer is added. This Marilyn Novak openly demonstrating how she transforms into Kim Novak, completely wordless, her face a blank, withheld canvas that warms up and breaks into a sultry smile once she completes the transformation. The way we build up cinematic personas, and love goddesses in particular, is examined in a matter of minutes, and it is a damn knockout sequence.

Shame then that the screenplay frequently fails Novak’s work. Numerous sequences are populated by awful dialog that needed a few more edits to sound plausible, and story beats that needed more modifications to develop. The isolation of Novak’s showgirl is felt in a minor way from the scripting, with most of the major work done by Novak’s moody, introspective persona. The constant worrying about aging out, or fending off hungry up-and-coming talent, doesn’t get enough traction to really reverberate, but what is there is solid. The subplot involving the romance with Michael Brandon as a young delivery boy has a few moments, but several of the scenes just feel artificial.

Still, for all of these clichés and problems (including sticking Tony Curtis with too thin of a role), The Third Girl from the Left is worth a look. It’s an engrossing enough piece of work on its own, but it’s immeasurably aided by Kim Novak. She brings the weight and reality of the life lived as a projection of lustful thoughts, and I’d wager that this performance is one of her unsung greats. Granted, it’s not up there with essential works like Vertigo, Kiss Me, Stupid, or Bell Book and Candle, but as a fan of her work, it’s nice to see a late period performance this strong after a few missteps and obtuse choices.