Frank Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) serves up a candy-colored paean to early rock ‘n’ roll, a screwball comedy in brilliant De Luxe hues presented in a CinemaScope widescreen wrapper. Washed-up alcoholic talent agent Tom Miller (Tom Ewell) is hired by polyester-suit-wearing former gangster Marty “Fats” Murdock (Edmond O’Brien)—who used to get a “brand-new bulletproof convertible each year”—to turn pneumatic, micro-waisted, platinum blonde bombshell Jerri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield) into a star singer (Fats says he “can’t marry a nobody”).
Initially, the wily Tom schleps Jerri around to various upscale nightclubs, where she sashays past owners and answers every question with “ask my agent.” At some point, the tease has to give way to the goods, however, and that is when Tom discovers Jerri’s singing voice will literally break glass (and not in a good way). Naturally, Tom—who has himself been pining for a lost flame whose career he launched—eventually falls in love with Jerri, entering a dangerous love triangle with a historically violent ex-con and a gal who wants nothing to do with show biz and longs to raise a large family.
Tashlin cut his professional teeth on animated films for Warner Bros. and Disney before moving on to live-action features (he made several movies with Jerry Lewis—a walking, talking cartoon). “The Girl Can’t Help It” features a number of cartoonish sight gags (many involving Jerri’s big bosom) and a handful of decent comic lines within a fairly standard plot that pointedly allows for a large number of filmed music performances by Black and white acts, including Little Richard (who sings the title tune), Fats Domino, The Platters, Abbey Lincoln, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and Julie London (singing “Cry Me a River'). Except for London, these artists actually made their living then in smoky dives—not the swanky clubs seen here—and their performances (many full-length) would likely have been an introduction to rock ‘n’ roll for many of the original audiences for the film.
In one of the best extras for this Criterion edition—featuring a gorgeous high-def digital transfer—filmmaker John Waters talks about his love for The Girl Can’t Help It and Mansfield, who was seen as a dumb blonde B-version of Marilyn Monroe but actually had a near-genius-level IQ around 160 (Mansfield died tragically in a car accident in 1967, although contrary to popular myth she was not decapitated).
Other extras include an audio commentary featuring film scholar Toby Miller, a new video essay by film critic David Cairns, a new conversation between WFMU DJs Dave “the Spazz” Abramson and Gaylord Fields about the music in the film, a new interview with Eve Golden (biographer of Jayne Mansfield), on-set footage, interviews with Mansfield (1957) and Little Richard (1984), an episode of Karina Longworth’s podcast “You Must Remember This” about Mansfield, and leaflets with an essay by critic Rachel Syme and excerpts from director Frank Tashlin’s 1952 book How to Create Cartoons with a new introduction by Ethan de Seife, author of Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin.
Hardly a landmark of classic cinema, The Girl Can’t Help It is nevertheless an enjoyable bit of Hollywood fluff with a fine set of musical numbers. Recommended for public librarians looking to diversify their classic film collection.