The Girl Can't Help It | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Frank Tashlin |
Written by | Frank Tashlin Herbert Baker |
Produced by | Frank Tashlin |
Starring | Tom Ewell Jayne Mansfield Edmond O'Brien Henry Jones Julie London |
Cinematography | Leon Shamroy |
Edited by | James B. Clark |
Music by | Bobby Troup |
Distributed by | 20th Century-Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 99 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.3 million [1] |
Box office | $6.2 million [2] |
The Girl Can't Help It is a 1956 American musical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield in the lead role, Tom Ewell, Edmond O'Brien, Henry Jones, and Julie London. The picture was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, with a screenplay adapted by Tashlin and Herbert Baker from an uncredited 1955 short story, "Do Re Mi" by Garson Kanin. [3] Filmed in DeLuxe Color, the production was originally intended as a vehicle for the American sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, with a satirical subplot involving teenagers and rock 'n' roll music. [4] The unintended result has been called the "most potent" celebration of rock music ever captured on film. [5]
The original music score, including the title song performed by Little Richard, was by Bobby Troup, with an additional credit to Ray Anthony for the tune "Big Band Boogie".
A slot machine mobster, Marty "Fats" Murdock, wants his blonde girlfriend, Jerri Jordan, to be a singing star, despite her seeming lack of talent. He hires alcoholic press agent Tom Miller to promote Jordan, both because of his past success with the career of singer Julie London and because he never makes sexual advances towards his female clients.
Miller sets to work by showing Jordan off around numerous night spots; his machinations arouse interest in Jordan and soon offers of contracts follow. However, Miller realizes that Jordan really just wants to be a homemaker and tries to persuade Murdock not to push Jordan into a show-business career. He thinks he's succeeded when he reveals to Murdock that Jordan's singing is so bad it shatters light bulbs, but Murdock suggests that Jordan would be perfect for a song he composed while in prison, "Rock Around the Rock Pile" (a parody of "Rock Around the Clock"). Miller reluctantly records Jordan performing the part of a prison siren in Murdock's song and heads to Chicago to promote it to Wheeler, a former mob rival of Murdock who now has a monopoly over the jukebox industry.
Suspicious of Miller's reluctance to promote Jordan and of the obvious attraction between Miller and Jordan, Murdock has his associate Mousie wiretap a phone call between the pair. Feeling pity for them, Mousie edits out the romantic portions of their conversations and convinces Murdock that their relationship is strictly business.
In Chicago, Wheeler is impressed by the song and Jordan's voice and offers to sign both Jordan and the songwriter. However, when Miller reveals that the songwriter is Murdock, Wheeler throws him out of his office and vows never to play the song. A furious Murdock bullies bar owners into buying jukeboxes from him instead and successfully promotes his and Jordan's song. To prevent Murdock from stealing his business, Wheeler arranges to have Murdock assassinated at the rock show where Jordan will be making her debut.
On his way to the show, Murdock confesses to Mousie that he doesn't want to marry Jordan. Mousie confesses that he altered the tape of Jordan and Miller's phone call and encourages Murdock to let Jordan marry Miller. Backstage at the show, Jordan confesses her love to Miller and they kiss. Jordan also admits that she is a talented singer, who lied because she did not want a show business career; she goes on stage and performs a song about her love for Miller. When Murdock arrives, Miller declares to him that he and Jordan are in love; the delighted Murdock surprises Miller by shaking his hand and offering to be the best man.
Before Miller and Murdock can tell Jordan the good news, Wheeler's assassins shoot at Murdock. Miller fights them off and shoves Murdock on stage to perform his song, reasoning that the assassins won't shoot Murdock in front of so many witnesses. Wheeler arrives and, impressed by the audience's response to Murdock, calls off the assassination and signs Murdock instead. The film ends with Miller and Jordan kissing on their honeymoon, as Murdock and Mousie perform on a TV show in the background.
"Do Re Mi", a short story by Garson Kanin that had appeared in The Atlantic magazine in March 1955, was acquired by Fox. They initially assigned producer Nunnally Johnson to develop the film, but then decided to emphasize rock 'n' roll in it and, in 1956, reassigned it to director Frank Tashlin, whose background included work with music in animation. Tashlin collaborated on a new script with Herbert Baker that played up visual humor that was virtually cartoonish. Kanin did not approve of the new take on his story and requested his name be removed from the credits. Subsequently, Tashlin came up with the new title, The Girl Can't Help It. [3]
The film received mixed reviews by critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times noted that Mansfield's performance was underwhelming, stating, "Her range, at this stage, appears restricted to a weak imitation of Marilyn Monroe." [6]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
The film's influence on rock music is significant. The film reached Liverpool, England, in the early summer of 1957. The cameo performances of early rock 'n' roll stars such as Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, and Gene Vincent and His Bluecaps fascinated a 16-year-old John Lennon by showing him, for the first time, his "worshipped" American rock 'n' roll stars as living humans and thus further inspiring him to pursue his own rock 'n' roll dream. [8] On July 6, 1957, 15-year-old Paul McCartney was introduced to Lennon after the latter had performed at a village church garden party with his skiffle group The Quarrymen. McCartney demonstrated his musical prowess to Lennon by performing "Twenty Flight Rock" in a manner similar to how he had seen it played by Eddie Cochran in The Girl Can't Help It. This led to Lennon inviting McCartney to join the group. McCartney talks about the film in the documentary series The Beatles Anthology . [9]
On September 18, 1968, The Beatles interrupted recording "Birthday" at Abbey Road Studios so they could go back to Paul McCartney's house to watch the British TV premiere of the film. [10]
Also, some film buffs have pointed to Elvis Presley's famous performance of the song "Jailhouse Rock" in MGM's film of the same name (often cited as the first music video), released one year after The Girl Can't Help It, as bearing a remarkable resemblance to the theme and performance of a song called "Rock Around the Rockpile" from the earlier film. In that performance, Edmond O'Brien plays a character who seeks to escape an assassination attempt by jumping on stage and singing the lyrics, "rock, rock, rock around the rockpile," while backed up by The Ray Anthony Band wearing striped inmate uniforms. O'Brien, then 42 years old, even awkwardly attempts some of the hip-swiveling and leg motions for which Elvis had already become famous, as he had appeared already 10 times, to cumulative audiences in excess of 180 million viewers, and on national television, before and during the filming of The Girl Can't Help It, the production of which commenced in mid-September 1956. Other film buffs point to the famous acrobatic dancer and Presley contemporary, as well as MGM star, Russ Tamblyn ( Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ), who visited Presley at his suite at the Knickerbocker Hotel on the night before the filming of the "Jailhouse Rock" scene. Presley had had trouble that day at the rehearsals in interpreting what the MGM choreographer, Alex Romero, demanded of him, and Tamblyn's advice at the suite that night helped him perform the first part of that dance sequence (which, incidentally, was witnessed by the then-MGM megastar Gene Kelly). In fact, The Girl Can't Help It's producers had sought to enlist Presley, whose manager, Colonel Tom Parker, however, had demanded too much money. Two uncredited composers on The Girl Can't Help It, Hugo Friedhofer and Lionel Newman, had also composed music for the Elvis film Love Me Tender , in the same year, 1956.
The film and its title song are referenced in the Warner Bros. 1985 comedy film Spies Like Us , starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Donna Dixon. In the final scene, when American and Soviet representatives are negotiating strategic arms reductions by playing Trivial Pursuit, Austin Milbarge (Aykroyd) asks his Soviet counterparts, "What Little Richard song was the title of a 1950s movie starring Jayne Mansfield?" The Soviets incorrectly guess "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and "Great Balls of Fire" and consequently "lose" Eastern Europe's nukes. [11]
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 American satirical comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, and Mickey Hargitay, and with a cameo by Groucho Marx. The film is a satire on popular fan culture, Hollywood hype, and the advertising industry, which was profiting from commercials on the relatively new medium of television. It also takes aim at the reduction television caused to the size of movie theater audiences in the 1950s. The film was known as Oh! For a Man! in the United Kingdom.
"Heartbreak Hotel" is a song recorded by American singer Elvis Presley. It was released as a single on January 27, 1956, Presley's first on his new record label RCA Victor. It was written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden, with credit being given also to Presley. A newspaper article about the suicide of a lonely man who jumped from a hotel window inspired the song. Axton presented the song to Presley in November 1955 at a country music convention in Nashville. Presley recorded it on January 10, 1956, in a session with his band, the Blue Moon Boys, the guitarist Chet Atkins and the pianist Floyd Cramer. "Heartbreak Hotel" comprises an eight-bar blues progression, with heavy reverberation throughout the track, to imitate the character of Presley's Sun recordings.
The Quarrymen are a British skiffle/rock and roll group, formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Originally consisting of Lennon and several school friends, the Quarrymen took their name from a line in the school song of their school, the Quarry Bank High School. Lennon's mother, Julia, taught her son to play the banjo, showed Lennon and Eric Griffiths how to tune their guitars in a similar way to the banjo, and taught them simple chords and songs.
Antoine Dominique Domino Jr., known as Fats Domino, was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single "The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song's co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (1952) and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold.
Ray Edward "Eddie" Cochran was an American rock and roll musician. His songs, such as "Twenty Flight Rock", "Summertime Blues", "C'mon Everybody" and "Somethin' Else", captured teenage frustration and desire in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. Cochran experimented with multitrack recording, distortion techniques, and overdubbing, even on his earliest singles. Cochran played the guitar, piano, bass, and drums. His image as a sharply dressed and attractive young man with a rebellious attitude epitomized the stance of the 1950s rocker, and in death, Cochran achieved iconic status.
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass with rock and roll. The term "rockabilly" itself is a portmanteau of "rock" and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and electric blues.
Frank Tashlin, also known as Tish Tash and Frank Tash, was an American animator and filmmaker. He was best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated shorts for Warner Bros., as well as his work as a director of live-action comedy films.
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award, and soon gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
"Blue Suede Shoes" is a rock and roll standard written and first recorded by American singer, songwriter and guitarist Carl Perkins in 1955. It is considered one of the first rockabilly records, incorporating elements of blues, country and pop music of the time. Perkins' original version of the song appeared on the Cashbox Best Selling Singles list for 16 weeks and spent two weeks at the number two position.
Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known and most successful musical collaborations ever by records sold, with the Beatles selling over 600 million records worldwide as of 2004. Between 5 October 1962 and 8 May 1970, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by the Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue.
"Lady Madonna" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. In March 1968 it was released as a mono non-album single, backed with "The Inner Light". The song was recorded on 3 and 6 February 1968, before the Beatles left for India, and its boogie-woogie style signalled a more conventional approach to writing and recording for the group following the psychedelic experimentation of the previous two years.
Ivan Vaughan was a boyhood friend of John Lennon and later a schoolmate of Paul McCartney.
"Twenty Flight Rock" is a song originally performed by Eddie Cochran in the 1956 film comedy The Girl Can't Help It, and released as a single the following year. The song was published in 1957 as written by Ned Fairchild and Eddie Cochran, by American Music Incorporated and Campbell, Connelly and Company. Cochran's contribution was primarily on the music. His version is rockabilly-flavored, but artists of a variety of genres have covered the song.
"Be-Bop-a-Lula" is a rockabilly song first recorded in 1956 by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps.
The Beatles Anthology is a documentary television series on the career of the Beatles. It was broadcast on UK television in six parts on ITV between 26 November and 31 December 1995, while in the United States it was seen as three feature-length episodes on ABC between 19 and 23 November 1995. It was released in greatly expanded form as an eight-volume VHS set and an eight-disc LaserDisc set on 5 September 1996. The series was re-released on DVD in 2003, with an 81-minute special-features disc.
Nelda "Ned" Fairchild was an American songwriter. Her best known work is the 1957 rock'n'roll hit "Twenty Flight Rock", on which a co-writing credit was given to rock and roll pioneer Eddie Cochran. Paul McCartney and John Lennon have in different contexts said that McCartney was invited to join Lennon's band, The Quarrymen, because he knew both the chords and words to "Twenty Flight Rock", a much-admired staple of the bands forming in England at that time.
Songs We Remember is the third album by the re-incarnated version of the Quarrymen, which was the band that eventually evolved into the Beatles. It is also the final album to feature founder member Eric Griffiths before his death in 2005.
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is an original stage comedy in three acts and four scenes by George Axelrod. After a try-out run at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston from 26 September 1955, it opened at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway on 13 October, starring Jayne Mansfield, Walter Matthau and Orson Bean. Directed by the author and produced by Jule Styne, it closed on 3 November 1956 after 444 performances.
"She's Got It" is a 1956 song by Little Richard, written by John Marascalco and Little Richard. It was originally called "I Got It", but the lyrics were rewritten for the film The Girl Can't Help It. The song was first issued as single in October, reaching No. 9 on Billboard's R&B chart, and was then included on Richard's debut album on Specialty Records Here's Little Richard. The number was sung on film by Little Richard while Jayne Mansfield's character went to the powder room in The Girl Can't Help It.