DAVE PENNY is without doubt one of the greatest experts on the music of the 1940s and 1950s, and we’re very pleased to have him on board. He kicks off a series of articles with an in depth look at the film that is widely acknowledged as the best of the 1950s rock’n’roll movies.

 

 

 

THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT

 

“More than a good film, more than a funny film, more than an excellent parody; it is a kind of masterpiece of the genre... it’s more beautiful and more successful each time you see it.” – François Truffaut.

 

“There’s nothing in the world to me that’s funnier than big breasts!” - Frank Tashlin

 

 

Veteran gag-writer, children’s book author, animator and cartoon director, Frank Tashlin moved into live action films in the 1950s, but even when working with real actors he usually allied himself to comedic characters and misfits that would not have been out of place in one of his old Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies pieces. Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were among his first cinematic successes and then, in 1956, Jayne Mansfield appeared.

 

Mansfield had scored a big hit on Broadway in the 1955/56 season as Rita Marlowe - her wicked caricature of Marilyn Monroe - in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and her evident talent for comedy, in addition to her more obvious attributes, resulted in a contract with the 20^th Century Fox Studio. Far from the ditzy blonde bimbo roles she usually played, Mansfield had been born Vera Jayne Palmer in 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and grew up in New Jersey and Dallas, where her mother moved after the death of her father. She studied Drama and Physics at the Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Austin and UCLA and was rumoured to have an IQ of 163. Her first professional acting job was in a stage production of Death of a Salesman in October 1953 and after graduating to playing bit parts in several Warner Bros films of the early 1950s, she went to New York City looking for, and finding, fame and fortune on the Broadway stage. She returned to California in 1956 and a contract with 20^th Century Fox just as Frank Tashlin started looking around for a pneumatic blonde to play the part of Jerri Jordan in his next project.

 

Based on the 1955 novel Do Re Mi by Garson Kanin, the plot of The Girl Can’t Help It rests on the efforts of bombastic ex-gangster Marty “Fats” Murdoch (Edmond O’Brien) to spectacularly break his girlfriend, Jerri Jordan (Mansfield), into the world of show-business so that he can “marry a somebody”. To this end he employs fading Hollywood talent agent Tom Miller (Tom Ewell), a melancholy lush, to get results quickly. Perhaps inevitably, Tom and Jerri fall in love and spend much of the film trying to keep their affair from Murdoch, fearing bloody reprisals. The plot, garnered loosely from the novel, simply acts as a frame on which to hang Tashlin’s well-observed satires of the overlapping worlds of show-business, the record industry, organised crime, teenage fads and human relationships.

Bobby Troup, the composer of “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66” and boyfriend of singer Julie London, was hired to pen the title song and he also came up with the suitably moronic “Rock Around The Rock Pile” and filming was started in mid September 1956 and by the beginning of December, prints were with distributors for showing in the pre-Christmas season. With veteran character actors like Henry Jones (Mousie), John Emery (Wheeler), Edmond O’Brien and Tom Ewell, fresh from his starring role opposite Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, The Girl Can’t Help was largely given the thumbs-up by the movie critics of the day.

 

Without the dozen or so musical acts who liberally pepper the film, The Girl Can’t Help It would no doubt have slid into the semi-obscurity in which that other Tashlin/Mansfield collaboration Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? now wallows; both are good, well-made films, cleverly written with fine performances from all the cast, but they are very much of their time and unlikely to appeal to modern audiences hooked on action and special effects. Nevertheless it is The Girl Can’t Help It which has eclipsed other similar comedy films from the mid twentieth century, simply due to the inclusion of a lot of music…or more specifically, the brand new beat of rock ‘n’ roll. It was not the first film to feature rock ‘n’ roll music and it certainly wasn’t the last, but it was THE BEST. There was a rush of musical exploitation films for the Christmas 1956 market, including Bill Haley’s second feature Don’t Knock The Rock, Alan Freed’s Rock, Rock, Rock and more obscure fare such as Shake Rattle & Rock!, Rock Pretty Baby  and even Elvis’ debut in Love Me Tender, all of which were filmed in haste on a black and white budget with the musical performances shoe-horned into the plot to catch some teenage dollars, but The Girl Can’t Help It was different; apart from the big-name actors and big buck budget, the music was integral to the plot – and Tom Ewell’s pre-credit introduction made it so. Not only that, but it was the shrewd inclusion of the likes of Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, The Treniers, Fats Domino and the other rock ‘n’ rollers – all in glorious DeLuxe Color – that made the film a box office success worldwide in 1956-57 and granted The Girl Can’t Help It a shelf life long far beyond those of other clever 1950s comedies or, even, that of every other rock ‘n’ roll film!

 

Watching the Treniers in this film inspired Bruce and Hank to come up with the Shadows walk

LITTLE RICHARD

The first act Tom and Jerri encounter on their “nightclub crawl”, Little Richard and The Upsetters deliver faultless recreations of his recent Specialty hits “Ready Teddy” (#8 R&B/#44 POP) and “She’s Got It” (#9 R&B) - hardly surprising, really, as the studio cuts were used on the soundtrack. More unique was Bobby Troup’s witty title song which was recorded by Little Richard in New Orleans on 16^th October 1956 and, with the promotional power of the film, reached #7 R&B and #49 POP in January 1957. The usage of the song in the film was pure genius, both in the explosive way it interrupts Ewell’s laconic introduction and in the narrative it provides to the hilarious effects Mansfield’s early morning stroll has on the neighbourhood men-folk.Unlike Little Richard’s other two cuts, the film soundtrack version of “The Girl Can’t Help It” differed slightly from the single release.

 

NINO TEMPO

Born in Niagara Falls in 1935, Antonio Lo Tempio took up the tenor sax as a child and his rugged good-looks marked him out as a natural for the movies – usually in a musical capacity. Early uncredited appearances in George White’s Scandals and The Glenn Miller Story along with a recording contract with Hollywood’s new Liberty Records, led to a cameo appearance in The Girl Can’t Help It, albeit one that wasn’t very flattering; in a scene which attempts to display just how low Tom Miller and his portfolio has sunk, Nino Tempo plays the outrageously overblown honking and screaming instrumental “Tempo’s Tempo” from his Liberty LP Rock ‘n’ Roll Beach Party (LRP 3023).

Tempo later teamed up with his sister April Stevens and had a respectable run of hits in the 1960s on Atco and White Whale.

 

JOHNNY OLENN

Born Fred John Olenn McCord in San Antonio in 1936, Johnny Olenn began his career as a promising Country musician in San Antonio, Texas, before signing to Bob Tanner’s local T’N’T Records where, as rock ‘n’ roll act Johnny Olenn & The Jokers, he cut two singles including the first version of “I Ain’t Gonna Cry No More”. Signed to Liberty Records in late 1956, he was a natural to appear in The Girl Can’t Help It and he and his band provided the music for Tom’s first night of excess following his employment as Jerri’s theatrical agent and mentor.Both of his film showpieces, the cool ballad “My Idea of Love” and the rocking “I Ain’t Gonna Cry No More”, were included on Johnny Olenn’s Liberty LP Just Rollin’ with Johnny Olenn (LRP 3029) released early in 1957.

 

EDDIE FONTAINE

Born Edward Reardon in Jersey City in 1934, he began performing at the age of five and was a successful club singer by the time he was signed to RCA Victor’s “X” subsidiary in 1954 and his love of black music was clear in early releases such as “Rock Love”, “I Miss You So” and “Rollin’ Stone”. In 1956 he left RCA for a contract with US Decca where he waxed his version of “Cool It Baby” which had been  co-written by Lionel Newman. The song had already just been featured in a 20^th Century Fox teen-exploitation film, The Teenage Rebel where it was performed by The Treniers. Surprisingly, neither version charted and, as the Fontaine record couldn’t show two credits, it had to list the earlier film instead of The Girl Can’t Help It – which must have confused more than a few prospective purchasers – as well as latter day rock historians…

 

THE (THREE) CHUCKLES

Named after a candy bar and originally consisting of Tommy Romano (guitar/vocal), Tommy “Russ” Gilberto (bass/vocal) and Phil Bentl (accordion/vocal), the trio began recording after Benti had been replaced by 15-year-old Teddy Randazzo in 1953, and the group scored well with their debut “Runaround”, which was championed by Alan Freed after first being issued on the tiny Boulevard label and then picked up by RCA’s “X” label in 1954. The group continued to record for RCA until 1957 when Randazzo went solo. How this East Coast pop trio came to perform Lincoln Chase’s “Cinnamon Sinner” (a song they never commercially recorded) is now lost to history; one theory is that because Colonel Tom Parker had refused to allow Elvis to appear in the film, an embarrassed RCA had offered one of their other top teenage acts in his place.   

 

ABBEY LINCOLN

Born Anna Marie Woolridge in Chicago in 1930, she underwent a series of stage names (Anna Marie, Gaby Lee, Gaby Woolridge, etc.) before settling on Abbey Lincoln. With a face and form to upstage La Mansfield and possessing a powerful jazz voice, her early career consisted of fluffy supper-club ballads until she was signed to Riverside Records in 1957 and received musical direction and accompaniment from drummer Max Roach, whom she later married. Her debut album on Liberty – the wordy Abbey Lincoln’s Affair…a Story of a Girl in Love (LRP 3025) – released to coincide with her appearance in The Girl Can’t Help It, surprisingly didn’t feature “Spread The Word” and I can find no evidence that she actually recorded this song commercially.

 

JULIE LONDON

Liberty Records’ first hit-maker, and wife-to-be of Bobby Troup, Julie London was the perfect artist for the newly exploding LP market in the mid to late 1950s, purveying breathy cocktail-party jazz and standards inside the grooves and an attractive Hollywood “cheesecake” photo for the sleeve. A local California girl, she was born Gayle Peck in Santa Rosa in 1926 and began appearing in movies in the 1940, she became a favourite pin-up to the servicemen during WWII. In 1954 she met songwriter/musician Bobby Troup and he began grooming her as a singer, signing her to the fledgling Liberty Records where she debuted with “Cry Me A River” written by her childhood friend Arthur Hamilton. The song was an instant success, reaching #13 on the Top Hundred during a 13 week run over late 1955/early 1956, and helped push her debut album Julie Is Her Name (LRP 3006) to #2 on the LP chart in January 1956. It’s inclusion in The Girl Can’t Help It didn’t harm sales either, but by then Julie’s popularity was reckoned in her impressive LP sales, nevertheless by 1957 her debut single had sold a million copies.  

 

GENE VINCENT AND HIS BLUE CAPS

Capitol Record’s answer to Elvis Presley, Virginia’s Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps had recorded the rock ‘n’ roll classic “Be-Bop-A-Lula” back at their debut session in Nashville in May. Since its release, the record had become the hot hit of Summer 1956, attaining #9 on the Billboard Top 100, #5 on the Country chart and, amazingly, #8 on the R&B list, and was a natural for inclusion in the film, not least through Lionel Newman’s friendship with the Capitol board. Sadly, by the time The Blue Caps filmed their cameo for the film, innovative guitarists Cliff Gallup and Willie Williams had left the group and their places were taken by the laid-back Russell Wilaford and a gum-chewing Paul Peek who mimed to their parts in room one of The Beaux Arts rehearsal studios.  

 

EDDIE COCHRAN

Born Edward Ray Cochran in Albert Lea, Minnesota, in 1938, Eddie Cochran was already a veteran recording artist and a respected session musician by the time he signed to Liberty Records in the summer of 1956. Casting for Do-Re-Mi was already far advanced at this stage and the film’s musical director Lionel Newman had already been rejected by Elvis’ management, so Liberty was on the look out for it’s own “Elvis” and found it in Eddie Cochran.

Rushed into Hollywood’s Goldstar Studio, his first Liberty session produced little that the label thought worthy of release – their forte was cool jazz and swing not hot rockabilly - but from the masters, “20 Flight Rock” with it’s mumbled and incoherent phrases, was felt worthy of ridicule in the scene which set out to prove “Jerri” didn’t need a classically trained voice to sell records.  

This original “20 Flight Rock” was issued only in the UK on the London-American label, being deemed of insufficient quality for the US market. Eddie re-recorded the song in a smoother arrangement with Johnny Mann’s Orchestra for US release, but “our” rougher, more minimalist version was the best – just ask Paul McCartney…

 

THE TRENIERS

The Treniers originally consisted of twin brothers Cliff and Claude Trenier who were jazz singers with Jimmie Lunceford’s Orchestra in the mid 1940s. By a decade later, the group had expanded to include other family members and assorted musicians, and their exciting musical revue was an obvious choice to enliven any rock ‘n’ roll film, which they proved in vehicles such as Don’t Knock The Rock, Jukebox Rhythm, Calypso Heatwave and the aforementioned Teenage Rebel as well as The Girl Can’t Help It. Rockin’ Is Our Bizness had been recorded for OKeh Records a few years earlier, but by 1956 had become their theme song and an updated version was recorded specifically for the film.

 

FATS DOMINO

Despite approaching his thirtieth year, Fats Domino’s amiable persona and tight N’awleens R&B band made him the surprise hit of the 1950s era and he was featured in most of the important rock ‘n’ roll exploitation films, including Shake, Rattle & Rock!, Jamboree, The Big Beat and The Girl Can’t Help It. His cover of Smiley Lewis’ “Blue Monday” had been recorded almost two years before the release of the film, but the widespread promotion it gave it helped Fats’ Imperial single rocket to the top of the R&B chart – and to #9 on the Top 100 Pop chart - in the early months of 1957. As a result, the song is now regarded as one of Fats’ top five best sellers – right up there with “Ain’t That a Shame”, “Blueberry Hill”, “I’m Walkin’” and “I’m In Love Again”.

 

THE PLATTERS

An obscure California-based vocal harmony group in the early 1950s, The Platters rise to international fame began when they signed a management contract with songwriter Buck Ram in 1953. When their record company, Federal Records, refused to issue their original version of Ram’s “Only You”, Ram took the group to the Mercury label and their re-cut rocketed to the top of the R&B chart and hit #5 on the Pop Top Hundred. “You’ll Never, Never Know” was written by the group’s Paul Robi and Tony Williams with Ram (under his pseudonym “Jean Miles”) and was The Platters’ current hit at the time of filming, itself reaching #9 R&B and #14 Pop in November 1956.

Another camera-friendly act, The Platters made appearances in the likes of Rock Around The Clock, Rock All Night, Carnival Rock and Girl’s Town as well as The Girl Can’t Help It.

 

RAY ANTHONY

Born Raymond Antonini in Pennsylvania in 1922, trumpet-man Anthony spent his apprenticeship in the big swing bands of Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey before entering the US Army during WWII and leading the army band. Forming his own orchestra upon discharge, he

A good friend of Lionel Newman, Ray Anthony performed three songs in The Girl Can’t Help It (matched only by Little Richard); the ubiquitous and banal “Rock Around the Rock Pile”, penned by Bobby Troup to display the crassness of the new teenage music, the ballad “Ev’rytime” which had been recorded by Peggy Lee and was “ghosted” for Jayne Mansfield by Eileen Wilson, and the background number “Big Band Boogie”. All three were issued on a collectible Capitol EP by Ray Anthony, along with his version of the title song.

 

On the face of it the provenance of the acts used in the film smacked of laziness on the part of the film’s musical director, Lionel Newman. On paper, most of the acts were with local companies with whom Newman was friendly, particularly his old colleague Si Waronka who ran Liberty Records and happily contributed the services of Bobby Troup and Julie London, Nino Tempo and Abbey Lincoln, Johnny Olenn and Eddie Cochran. Newman’s other contacts at Capitol, Imperial and Specialty Records and individuals such as Buck Ram helped him pencil in more popular “names” to draw the audiences.

 

After literally taking the bull by the horns and wrangling with Colonel Tom over Elvis’ services for the film, who can blame him?