The Girl Can't Help It
Directed by Frank Tashlin | Music & Lyrics by Bobby Troup
USA | 1956 | Fiction | 99 min

This event is part of Global Roots Film Festival: Why Sing, Why Dance?

Starring Jayne Mansfield in the titular role. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for the American sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, with a satirical subplot involving teenagers and rock 'n' roll music. The unintended result has been called the "most potent" celebration of rock music ever captured on film. The original music score, including a title song performed by Little Richard, was by Bobby Troup. The Girl Can't Help It is an inspired, wildly over-the-top comedy with Jayne Mansfield cast as the girlfriend of a retired gangster (Edmond O’Brien) who hires a press agent (Tom Ewell) to make her a star. Using Mansfield as a kind of a three-dimensional cartoon, The Girl Can’t Help It combined broad comedy with legendary rock and roll performances by Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, and the Platters.

According to Wikipedia, the movie's influence on rock music is significant. The film reached Liverpool, England, in the early summer of 1957. The cameo performances of early rock 'n' roll stars such as Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, and Gene Vincent and His Bluecaps fascinated a 16-year-old John Lennon by showing him, for the first time, his "worshipped" American rock 'n' roll stars as living humans and thus further inspiring him to pursue his own rock and roll dream.