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Sprinkled with a glossy coat of early rock and roll pioneers appearing for quick cameos, The Girl Can’t Help It takes aim at the music industry (namely the payola scandal), the 1950s obsession with breasts, and the deception of appearances. Moreover, with Frank Tashlin running the show, you know that the whole thing is going to be a slightly bonkers cartoon, like a “Merrie Melodies” turned flesh-and-blood.
Tom Ewell, taking his character from The Seven Year Itch to its logical and insane conclusion, plays a drunken talent manager on a depressive spiral after a bad breakup who gets roped into a mobster’s scheme to turn his pneumatic but seemingly talentless girlfriend into a star. The basic structure of the film is similar to Born Yesterday, trading out that film’s questionable view of American politics with the music industry and an assortment of musical cameos.
The film’s shiny, bright CinemaScope and Technicolor exterior can’t disguise the diseased worldview it holds dear to its heart. The music industry is presented as little more than one part organized criminal activities and one part advertising company in which stars and hit songs are engineered, talent is meaningless, and mass pop-culture is aimed squarely at the dumbest level. Edmund O’Brien’s musical performance sees a group of teenagers staring at him in dead-eyed, open-mouthed adoration.
A large chunk of the film sees O’Brien’s former gangster getting into a revised turf war with another former gangster. This time around instead of disputes about illegal gambling and money laundering, it’s about jukeboxes and getting records played. The only logical conclusion to be reached from this is that organized crime and big business as the same thing in various forms of legality.
But these aren’t the only targets that Tashlin sets about satirizing with glee. Jayne Mansfield, who else really, plays the unwitting doll to O’Brien’s gangster. Her voluptuous figure and ditzy blonde artifice disguise a woman who is happiest playing homemaker and down-playing her sex appeal. Tashlin appears to have been the only director who not only gave Mansfield material to work with, but found the right venue to highlight and support her limited talents as an actress.
But she isn’t the only character to be built upon an artifice that entraps them. Ewell’s drunken talent manager is revealed as being heartbroken after creating Julie London’s career, a drunken night has him being haunted by visions of her singing “Cry Me a River” in his home, changing outfits from room to room as he tries to escape her. We thought he was a schlep, but Ewell’s character is a secret ladies magnet. And Edmund O’Brien’s gangster chomps on cigars and talks tough, but reveals himself as happiest when indulging his secret passion as a song-and-dance man. The initial exteriors of these characters dissolve slowly as the film goes on, before finally breaking wide open during a climatic concert.
In addition, the film has plenty of fun poking around at the 1950s breast obsession. As Mansfield walks down the street a humorous sequence of events occur: ice melts, milk bottles ejaculate, a pair of glasses break, and practically every man within a three-mile radius is reduced to the wolf from a Tex Avery cartoon. Another gag sees Mansfield holding two milk bottles over her breasts while talking about how she longs for motherhood. Whether or not this is a one-note joke is up for you to decide. I found it humorous and think that it could work on a few different levels.
On a more surface level of enjoyment, The Girl Can’t Help It features some prime footage of performers like Little Richard, Julie London, Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino, the Platters, and Gene Vincent. It may be poking fun at the music industry, but Girl is also one hell of a rock and roll movie, capturing the rebellious, cartoonish spirit of the early years and blasting it writ large across the silver screen.
