1h 39min | Comedy, Music | 1 December 1956 | Color, WS
Director: Frank Tashlin
Stars: Tom Ewell, Jayne Mansfield, Edmond O'Brien, lots of R'n'R acts.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049263/
Watched online, good print.
~22 songs in the Soundtracks, mostly R'n'R. Performers include JM, Julie London, Little Richard, The Platters, Fats Domino and more.
5th film credit for JM.
Because I watched those 3 indie/pov.row rockers already, this seems almost normal. Like them, it's a hodgepodge of rock acts and songs, here performed in nightclubs and on jukeboxes (but we see the performers in a flashback?)
The plot: former gangster & ex-con (EO) wants formerly successful agent (TE) to make his intended (JM) a successful singer so she'll have a status worthy of EO's perception of himself. She's only going along because she owes EO for mitigating her father's prison sentence. She pretends to sing badly, but EO persists. While working on her act, she falls for TE, and he for her. They make a success of a song written by EO, with an established rock group putting the song over, while she does a gimmick siren sound. But the mobster who controls the jukeboxes nationwide won't allow EO's song in his machines (they have history), so EO decides to take over the jukebox business, gangland style. The jukebox guy catches up with EO at a live performance, and TE shoves EO onstage to protect him while the cops are in transit. But EO puts his song across, and becomes a star himself. TE & JM marry and have babies, with EO as babysitter. The End.
JM does sing pretty on one song, but nothing dazzling. She's such a derivative of Marilyn that I don't really like to watch her. As with mathematical derivatives, much is lost in the construction, and she has none of the vulnerability, little of the sensuousness. She has a terrifically small waist, which makes her cone-bra'd bust and very round behind look that much bigger. But I crossed out the airhead evaluation of the synopsis writer. She is fully aware of what she wants and doesn't; she just feels obligated to do as she is asked, up to a point. She definitely stands up for herself when EO gets verbally abusive, and although it seems EO is paying for her apartment, she does live separate from him, and pursues her own interests despite EO's negativity. So the feminist in me is NOT alarmed by her. If a cinched waist pays the bills, so be it.
Nothing much to enjoy here, although the color is great. A couple of the sight gags (men reacting to JM) remind me that writer/director Tashlin directed Looney Tunes for a while: 39 of them from '36-'46. He also worked with Jerry Lewis a lot.
Fox, dir. Tashlin; 6-
Update 6Jul2023: Beware that on the Criterion Collection commentary track by Toby Miller, he repeatedly (at least 4 times in a few minutes) refers to the milkman as Phil Silvers (not just like him); the actor is Richard Collier per IMDb. He makes another factual error (unless IMDb is wrong) that Julie London was married to Jack Webb at the time, whereas she was between that marriage and Bobby Troup. Very often he describes what is happening onscreen, which is never illuminating.
Fortunately the rest of the CC extras are well worth the time.
The film is still annoying because I don't care for early rock. But it IS visually interesting. Perhaps I should try watching it fast-forwarding to edit out the music numbers.
6.8 (3,754); 6-
