Queenie (Raquel Welch) with Dale Sword (Perry King) in another dance number, "The Herbert Hoover Drag." The film was referred to by a critic as being the first dark musical, as in noir.

The Wild Party
1975/U.S., 100 Minutes

Time also has a framing role in The Wild Party, shot soon after Autobiography of a Princess. It has a curious history, having been inspired by a blank-verse narrative poem of 1926 by Joseph Moncure March about a disastrous Greenwich Village party given by a vaudeville comic in his walk-up apartment. The lyricist Walter Marks saw in it the idea for a musical film, with the setting changed to Hollywood at the end of the silent-movie era. Shortly after the project was brought to Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh, producers of Godspell and other Broadway musicals, Walter Marks's brother Peter discussed it with Ivory and mentioned that a director was needed. It was in this way that Ivory, as director, and Merchant, as coproducer with Lansbury and Beruh, were brought in. An important change was made in the script on which Ivory and Marks collaborated: the musical became a drama with music.

Director: James Ivory.
Producer: Ismail Merchant.
Screenplay: Walter Marks, based on the narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March.
Photography: Walter Lassally.
Music/Music director: Larry Rosenthal.
Editor: Kent McKinney.
Art director: David Nichols.
Costumes: Ron Talsky, Ronald Kolodgie, Ralph Lauren
Choreography: Patricia Birch
Songs: Walter March
Executive producers: Edgar Lansbury, Joseph Beruh

Cast: James Coco (Jolly Grimm), Raquel Welch (Queenie), Perry King (Dale Sword), Tiffany Bolling (Kate), David Dukes (James Morrison), Royal Dano (Tex, Jolly's chauffeur), Dena Dietrich (Mrs. Murchison), Regis J. Cordic (Mr. Murchison), Jennifer Lee (Madeleine True), Marya Small (Bertha), Bobo Lewis (Wilma), Annette Ferra (Nadine), Eddie Laurence (Kreutzer), Tony Paxton (Sergeant), Waldo K. Berns (Policeman), Nina Faso (Lady in black), Baruch Lumet (Tailor), Martin Kove (Editor), Ralph Manza (Fruit Dealer), Lark Geib (Rosa), Frederick Franklyn (Sam), J. S. Johnson (Morris), Michael Grant Hall (Oscar D'Armano), Skipper (Phil D'Armano), Don De Natale (Jackie, the Apache Dancer), Tom Reese (Eddy), Geraldine Baron (Grace), Jill Giraldi (Crippled Girl), Barbara Quinn (Mildred), Gloria Godhoke (Redhead).