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The Girl Can't Help It



In 1956, Frank Tashlin brought the talent for zany visual gags and absurdist pop-culture satire that he'd honed as a master of animation to the task of capturing, in glorious DeLuxe Color, a brand-new craze: rock and roll. This blissfully bonkers jukebox musical tells the story of a mobster's bombshell girlfriend—the one and only Jayne Mansfield, in a showstopping first major film role—and the washed-up talent agent (Tom Ewell) who seeks to revive his career by turning her into a musical sensation. The only question is: Can she actually sing? A CinemaScope feast of eye-popping midcentury design, The Girl Can't Help It bops along to a parade of performances by rock-and-roll trailblazers—including Little Richard, Fats Domino, Julie London, Eddie Cochran, the Platters, and Gene Vincent—who light up the screen with the uniquely American sound that was about to conquer the world.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Toby Miller
• New interview with Eve Golden, biographer of actor Jayne Mansfield
• New video essay by film critic David Cairns
• Interview with filmmaker John Waters
• New conversation between WFMU DJs Dave "the Spazz" Abramson and Gaylord Fields about the music in the film
• On-set footage
• Interviews with Mansfield (1957) and musician Little Richard (1984)
• Episode of Karina Longworth's podcast You Must Remember This about Mansfield
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Rachel Syme and, for the Blu-ray, 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

This is a terribly welcome surprise, and a long-overdue upgrade to the non-anamorphic (if I’m remembering correctly) DVD release.

I’m a little disappointed there’s no contribution from Abbey Bender — she loves the film, and it seems a perfect release for one of her fashion-centric pieces. But the features look packed regardless.

Verry naice. I can finally retire the Second Sight DVD. Excellent cover too, and input from John Waters!

Terrific news! Would be tremendous if this is just the beginning of Tashlin in the Collection.

The [worthwhile] Waters interview is here

One of my favorite Tashlins, and a far more intelligently-designed film than it lets on. My writeup from the 50s project:

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 5:23 am A Girl Can’t Help It is a riot, with Edmond O’Brien playing a cheesier version of his gangster persona on steroids of hamminess, and the salient, catchy theme song interrupting scenes with non-diegetic high volume. Mansfield works better than Monroe in her own self-reflexive roles, as Tashlin has her strutting around confusing men by embodying her stereotype. As Ewell tries to engage her in conversations that would give her complex shades of personality, Mansfield doubles down by admitting to being a unidimensional sexpot - even using the word! Watching him puzzled, continuously prompting and feeding her opportunities to give a typical rom-com answer to flesh herself out, only to have the pop-image reinforced, is another intricately-conceived and perfectly orchestrated Tashlin idea to add to the books. Of course this changes a bit organically when not being forced, or perhaps more in Ewell and us finding authenticity in Mansfield's persona rather than trying to make her different. This works best as a comedy rather than a musical- not that it isn’t refreshing to see and hear Little Richard and co. take the stage and weave their jams into the celluloid between bits - but it’s not the reason to tune in here. This is Tashlin exerting clever mechanics in social hierarchy and archetypes-as-reality to expose absurdist human behavior.

Incredible announcement. I did not think this would be something Criterion would be interested in, but so happy to be wrong

Finally, Eddie Cochran in the collection!

Edit: his red-hot Gretsch is the sexiest thing in this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FBVdok5Kns

Tashlin on Criterion? oooooooOOOOOOooooooooh!

agnamaracs wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:31 pm Tashlin on Criterion? oooooooOOOOOOooooooooh!

That's one hell of an orgasm.

Here's Mark Cousins' introduction to The Girl Can't Help It in Moviedrome from 1997, when it was shown in a double bill with Aki Kaurismäki's Take Care Of Your Scarf, Tatjana.

hearthesilence wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:33 pm

agnamaracs wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:31 pm Tashlin on Criterion? oooooooOOOOOOooooooooh!

That's one hell of an orgasm.

...I really can't tell if you got the reference or not. I mean, I'm excited, but...

This thread needs a GIF of the milkman holding the exploding bottles, but I can't find one

agnamaracs wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:52 pm

hearthesilence wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:33 pm

agnamaracs wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:31 pm Tashlin on Criterion? oooooooOOOOOOooooooooh!

That's one hell of an orgasm.

...I really can't tell if you got the reference or not. I mean, I'm excited, but...

Ah, see I’m used to reading Little Richard’s ooo’s without the letters going from small to capital letters then small again. It looks like a crescendo like that when he usually hits full volume right out of the gate and sustains it.

Thank you for your service!

There’s no way that bedroom shot was intended to look that dark

Gross. Classic tealed modern Fox resto

I mean, I can look the other way on a number of these titles, but a Tashlin film's colors should pop like a cartoon. It's just a weird mishmash of tones - aesthetically and energetically - and I can't believe a room full of people who've actually seen the movie would be okay with this and give it a pass

Ugh, another one to the Fox Tealified list.

I honestly can't imagine how the people tasked to restore The Girl Can't Help It came up with this color grading. It just makes me wonder... what did they base their decisions on? What was their research? And indeed, have they seen the film on DVD and/or other Tashlin films? But I understand even less how a transfer like this gets approved and released.

If, as suspected for other restoration houses, the teal-ification is the result of a LUT applied willy-nilly at the end of grading, it's possible no one is doing any research, or whatever research they've done is immaterial to the final result.

This surely cannot come as a surprise to anyone, following the TT "upgrade" of Rock Hunter (not to mention a great many other Fox colour remasters, see Desk Set, Gang's All Here, et al).

Unfortunately Criterion are simply not in tune enough with the more enthusiast/hardcore side of boutique label fandom to do what Indicator did when presented with a questionable Fox remaster: include the older HD legacy master along with it on the same disc (and if Criterion had done, their poor compression practices would have ruined both versions in the effort to squeeze them on!).

Dylan, DVDs should not be used as color reference. Fox should, ideally, have timing notes and answer prints to reference when color grading, but who really knows what they are using.