Search - The Girl Can't Help It on DVD

Content Advisory: Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1956 Format: DVD SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Members Wishing: 6 Genres: Comedy, Crime Comedy, Rock Musical

The inimitable writer-director Frank Tashlin once more aims his satiric barbs at modern culture (modern 1950s culture, that is) in The Girl Can't Help It. Much of the film is dominated by Edmond O'Brien as mob boss Murdock, who while serving a term in federal prison becomes a singing sensation with his hit tune "Rock Around the Rock Pile." Once he's sprung, Murdock hires impoverished agent Tom Miller (Tom Ewell), not to promote his own career, but to turn his curvaceous lady friend Jerri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield) into a star. Alas, Jerri has no singing or acting talent whatsoever, a fact that she's eager and willing to admit. A domestic type at heart, all Jerri really wants out of life is to marry Murdock, so that she can clean his house, cook his meals and raise his children. When Murdock refuses to grant her wishes, Jerri falls in love with Tom instead.

Every so often, director Tashlin takes time out from the plot to poke fun at such technical marvels as CinemaScope and Technicolor, and to lampoon the American male's fixation on female bosoms and bottoms (at one point, Jayne Mansfield leans towards the camera, her cleavage exposed as far as the censors will allow, and plaintively asks Tom Ewell if he believes that she's equipped for motherhood). While much of the humor in the film is dated, The Girl Can't Help It is an invaluable record of the pop-music scene of the 1950s, featuring such guest artists as Julie London (playing Tom Ewell's dream girl), Ray Anthony, Fats Domino, The Platters, Little Richard and his Band, Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps, the Treniers, Eddie Fontaine, Abbey Lincoln and Eddie Cochran. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tom Ewell - Tom Miller
Jayne Mansfield - Jerri Jordan
Edmond O'Brien - Marty Murdock
Henry Jones - Mousie
Julie London - Herself
Ray Anthony - Himself
John Emery - Wheeler

Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It (1956) never made it to laserdisc, principally because 20th Century Fox never was able to find stereo sound elements. Now, in England, Second Sight Entertainment has issued the movie on DVD in a nicely packaged deluxe edition, letterboxed in the proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio in a gorgeous source print where every image is so crystal clear and the color so radiant that it's just one step short of 3-D in crispness and relief. The 93-minute movie has been given a generous 20 chapters that break the movie down more than adequately, labeling all of the songs as well as the major plot points. There's no trailer, and there's no setting for audio selection, but there is a priceless supplement, a 20-minute interview with John Waters, who discusses the movie in detail -- his observations are extremely prescient where the music and the look of the movie are concerned, and he points up some of the fascinating inconsistencies of the movie, such as Little Richard performing in a fancy nightclub, which was definitely not the case for rock & roll in 1956; the segment also parallels Divine's use of "The Girl Can't Help It" with the way it is used in this movie. And he points up -- in language that one doubts will make to any U.S. release of this disc -- parallels between The Girl Can't Help It and the films of Douglas Sirk (which makes one wonder why Todd Haynes hasn't yet attempted a remake). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide