THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT
TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX, 1956 | COLOR (DELUXE)/CINEMASCOPE, 99 MINUTES
DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER: FRANK TASHLIN SCREENPLAY: FRANK TASHLIN AND HERBERT BAKER, BASED ON THE NOVEL DO RE MI BY GARSON KANIN SONGS: BOBBY TROUP, FATS DOMINO, GENE VINCENT, AND OTHERS STARRING: TOM EWELL (TOM MILLER), JAYNE MANSFIELD (JERI JORDAN), EDMOND O’BRIEN (MARTIN “FATS” MURDOCK), HENRY JONES (MOUSIE), JUANITA MOORE (HILDA), AS THEMSELVES: JULIE LONDON, FATS DOMINO, LITTLE RICHARD, RAY ANTHONY, THE PLATTERS, EDDIE COCHRAN, GENE VINCENT, ABBEY LINCOLN, THE TRENIERS, NINO TEMPO, THE CHUCKLES
An ex-con hires a washed-up press agent to turn his talent-free girlfriend into a singing star.
The earliest movies to feature rock ’n’ roll artists were ramshackle and cheap, with one exception. This gaudy mashup of rock and Jayne Mansfield is a historical document, a cinematic jukebox, and a riot.
Film first acknowledged rock ’n’ roll when MGM’s The Blackboard Jungle began, startlingly, with the sounds of “Rock Around the Clock.” Then, in 1956, Bill Haley and the Comets starred in two movies and disc jockey Alan Freed, the “Father of Rock ’n’ Roll,” appeared in three. Twentieth Century-Fox was already planning The Girl Can’t Help It as a vehicle for a new star, Jayne Mansfield, and quickly reconfigured it for Mansfield to share the screen and the soundtrack with a large assortment of rock and pop artists. (Fox certainly covered its musical bases that year: traditional fare like The King and I and Carousel, plus this and Elvis Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender.) The result was a box-office hit at a time when most studios were leery of rock, and the presence of such artists as Little Richard, Fats Domino, and the Platters indicated that the complexion of pop music and culture was changing, along with the sound.
Without Frank Tashlin, The Girl Can’t Help It might have been a hopeless jumble of comedy and guest stars. Tashlin had made animated films before moving on to live action, and instead of treating Mansfield like a carbon-copy Marilyn, Tashlin treats her, essentially, like a character in one of his cartoons. Mansfield leans forward while she walks, all but knocks over furniture when making sharp turns, and then there’s that famous shot of her holding up two bottles of milk. She comes in contact with rock ’n’ roll only intermittently, most conspicuously when Geri records “Rock Around the Rock Pile” and shows that her main talent is not being a siren but sounding like one. With all this, it’s to Mansfield’s credit that she is able to convey that there’s a sweet young woman underneath all the sequins and brouhaha.
“Be-Bop-a-Lula”: Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps
In the crooked and sometimes insane music business portrayed here, rock ’n’ roll is definitely the new world order, and the artists are treated with respect. In contrast with the flat monochrome of other early rock movies, Tashlin’s cartoonist eye makes them pop: Little Richard, with his silver-tipped shoes and shiny suit, is as striking to look at as to listen to, and his two songs, the title number and “She’s Got It,” are testaments to his talent as well as wry comments on Mansfield herself. If she and the rock artists do not necessarily operate on the same wavelength, the movie’s witty prologue has already pointed out that the world is changing, and fast. Clearly, the singers are all okay with the furor they’re causing, and some of them, like Domino, Little Richard, and the Platters, kept going for a long time. Others flashed and vanished (the Chuckles), and a few died way too young, like Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, plus Mansfield herself. Here, they’re all young and vital and in peak form, and this giddy satire of fame, stardom, and the music business is a dandy way for a movie to salute their talent. Just don’t expect its director to take them—or anything—too seriously.
Edmond O’Brien, Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell
WHAT’S MORE
While its depiction of the music business as a crime-ridden snake pit seems to be a typical Tashlin exaggeration, this film was being quite prescient. By 1960, the music industry was awash in a series of scandals over payola, now commonly known (in entertainment and politics) as “pay to play.” The once-mighty career of Alan Freed collapsed after he was charged with conflict-of-interest and bribery, and the up-and-coming Dick Clark narrowly avoided something similar.
One of the supposed ironies in The Girl Can’t Help It is that though Jayne Mansfield is believed to be tone-deaf, she actually can sing. It’s obvious, however, that Jeri’s “voice” near the end isn’t Mansfield’s. It belongs to Eileen Wilson, who often served in this capacity. Later, in The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw, Mansfield would be dubbed by none other than pop queen Connie Francis. While she sang for herself in nightclubs and made several recordings, vocalism was never Mansfield’s forte. She did, on occasion, play the violin—a touch which might have made this movie even nuttier.
Tom Ewell, Edmond O’Brien, Jayne Mansfield, Henry Jones
MUSICALLY SPEAKING
One of the most arresting moments here, and a neat break from all the up-tempo music and comedy, comes when a drunken Tom Ewell is haunted by the recurring specter of Julie London singing “Cry Me a River.” With its striking use of color and procession of gorgeous gowns (seven), the sequence looks as sultry as it sounds. It also serves as a reminder that Ms. London’s handlers paid almost as much attention to her album covers as to her vocals. Her movie career was erratic, and this scene hints at some good things that, on film, never really happened.