I always wanted the main emphasis of this blog to be about music in the movies, and tonight's Saturday Night Spectacular is a more than a perfect example of why! In fact, I'm going to go to Amazon right now and buy the MP3 soundtrack, that's how much I liked it!
"The Girl Can't Help It" is a rockin' musical of the highest calibre imaginable with an array of incomprehensible talent from start to finish!
The basic storyline is that Tom Ewell is a drunken washed up talent agent, and Edmund O'Brien is a washed up gangster who wants to make a young lady acquaintance of his famous! Before he even casts his eyes on her, Tom is totally disinterested, but he's just about to change his mind!
For being as close to a nerd as you can get, Tom cuts a pretty mean rug!!
Indeed, the girl can't help it! It's beyond her control!
Jayne Mansfield as Jerri Jordan is really not interested in being a star at all, in fact, what she would rather do is cook! Often portrayed as merely a ditzy blond, Jayne shows that she has quite a bit more depth to her acting talents in this role!
The
title song is brilliantly performed by Richard Wayne Penniman, aka Little Richard!!
"The Girl Can't Help It" is packed to the brim with talent like "The Treniers!
The lesser well known The Chuckles and ..........
.................Abbey Lincoln!
The sultry Julie London is Tom Ewell's ex-flame and performs "Cry Me A River".............
........in a scene where she haunts him from every square inch of his pad!!
Just look at the beauty of this scene, this girl, and this car, and just try and tell me you're not interested in seeing this movie! I don't believe you!!
The talent just doesn't stop! Just who is up next? Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps!!! Now you know why they called them the Blue Caps?
The King of New Orleans piano, Fats Domino even makes an appearance!!
The Platters show up!
And if Gene Vincent wasn't enough for you, Eddie Cochran is also in this move! That's right, I said Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran were both in this film! It's like Rock and Roll heaven!!
Great composition!
I love this shot where Jayne is in the recording studio to record "Rock Around The Rock Pile" and she gets an apple out of a vending machine to gnaw on while she's waiting for her part in the song, which is one long wailing siren shriek, and that's what the one big note on the page of music represents!
Not that it really has anything to do with this movie, but I'm a big Dan Brown fan, and I just finished reading his first novel, "Deception Point," but it left me cold, and I want to tell you something, "The Girl Can't Help It" was a Helluva lot hotter, fun, and interesting!
I'll never forget the time I was in one of my blackest, all-time moods when this popped up on cable. It changed my attitude immediately. Love this movie!
ReplyDeleteI reviewed this too and put up a bunch of screencaps. http://www.retrohound.com/the-girl-can%E2%80%99t-help-it-movie-review/
ReplyDeleteI always like to hear comments like Greg Goodsell's when it comes to a light comedy.
ReplyDeleteI think I've only seen it once, but I remember it also has Barry Gordon as a little boy with an instant crush on Jayne Mansfield's character, which is hardly surprising.