The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956)

The three Tashlin films I've seen thus far have all been exemplary displays of comedy, their feverish blend of intricate aesthetic craftsmanship and rapid-fire farce a tremendous live-action application of the director's animation background. If The Girl Can't Help It lacks the same level of total perfectionism as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, that is only because even Tashlin cannot bring the rawness of the emerging rock scene fully under his satiric control. In its own way, that makes this even more exciting, as no other film has ever so perfectly captured the depth of social upheaval rock 'n roll brought to the kind of society Tashlin plays up as stagnant around explosive acts like Fats Domino and Little Richard. In a particularly amusing twist, gangsters past their prime find new vigor in the rock scene, but it is the music, not their criminal pasts, that bring back their menace.


Check out my full article on the film over at Movie Mezzanine.