Movies - The Girl Can't Help It

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	Movies - The Girl Can't Help It

The Girl Can't Help It is a 1956 comedy, musical film, starring Tom Ewell, Edmond O'Brien and Jayne Mansfield. It was directed by Frank Tashlin, with a screenplay written by Frank Tashlin and Herbert Baker from an uncredited novel Do Re Me by Garson Kanin.

The original music score was credited to Bobby Troup, with an additional credit to Ray Anthony for the tune "Big Band Boogie". It was shot in Color (De Luxe), filmed in Cinemascope and it lasted 99 minutes.

The script is witty, encapsulating many of the attitudes and opinions of the time, although the storyline is really very simple. A slot machine mobster, Marty "Fatso" Murdock (O'Brien) wants his blonde girlfriend, Jerri Jordan (Mansfield) to be a singing star, despite the fact that she seems to have no talent.

In order to achieve this aim, he hires Press Agent, Tom Miller (Ewell) to promote her career. He chooses Miller, because of his past success with the career of singer Julie London (a fiction of the script) and the fact that he never makes sexual advances towards his female clients.

Miller reluctantly takes on the job and sets to work by showing her off around numerous night spots and rehearsal rooms in order that she may be seen by those that matter in show business. He merely requires her to move around looking beautiful, whilst always dressed in the latest haute-couture fashions.

Miller's machinations arouse interest in Jerri and soon offers of contracts follow. A distraught Miller, terrified of Murdock, twists and turns and uses various ruses to keep him at bay. On top of this, there are the usual misunderstandings, when Mousie, Henry Jones, an associate of the ever jealous Murdock incorrectly interprets snatches of overheard conversation.

Finally it is discovered that Jerri does have talent, which appears to solve Miller's problems. That is until Jerri reveals that she is only interested in home and motherhood and that he is the real object of her affection. There is, of course, a happy ending for everyone.

Tom Ewell gives a good performance in his role as Miller, although he is really reprising his role in The Seven Year Itch
when he played opposite Marilyn Monroe. He maintains the stoic air of a man struggling against adversity; no mean feat, when part of that adversity looked like Jayne Mansfield.

Edmond O'Brien is loud and overbearing as Murdock, but his performance is obviously tongue-in-cheek and he shows a good grasp of comedy in some of his witty asides. Particularly memorable is his sentence, "etcetera, etcetera, etcetera", which is a parody of the same line used by Yul Brynner in the 1956 film, The King and I
.

Jayne Mansfield merely carries out the role, which the director has set for her. She utters a series of simple lines and stands or moves around looking beautiful. Her speech about a woman's place being in the home, may sound old fashioned, but it was very much the way of thinking in 1956. Tashlin may have kept her role deliberately simple in order not to invite unfair comparisons with Marilyn Monroe, for whom the role may have originally been written.

Appearing at the night spots, which Miller and Jerri visit, is a line-up of some of the golden greats of Rock & Roll, such as Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Platters, Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps, as well as lesser known artists, such as Eddie Fontaine, The Treniers and The Chuckles, who obtained brief bursts of popularity in 1956, but who soon faded. There are even young hopefuls like Teddy Randazzo, who hung around the Rock 'n' Roll scene for years, but who never became major stars.

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