The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)

Despite a lack of talent, Jayne Mansfield’s gangster boyfriend Edmund O’Brien hires press agent Tom Ewell to make her a music star. Mansfield was certainly beautiful, but I wish Hollywood would have done something better for her than try to make her a Marilyn Monroe clone, all the way to platinum blonde hair that didn’t suit her. This film unfortunately didn’t even try. What does set it apart is its absolutely incredible number of musical performances from the likes of Little Richard, Abbey Lincoln, Fats Domino, and The Platters. They were more entertaining than the rest of the film. Being such a fan of Cinemascope, I did have a chuckle at the clever way they introduced the process at the beginning of the film. It actually threw me off when the film first started until I saw what they were doing.