The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)
By Bob Pakes
Little Richard | The Girl Can’t Help It / Ready Teddy / She’s Got It
Johnny Olenn & The Jokers | My Idea Of Love / I Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
Ray Anthony | Rock Around The Rock Pile / Big Band Boogie
Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps | Be-Bop-A-Lula
Eddie Cochran | Twenty Flight Rock
Fats Domino | Blue Monday
The Platters | You’ll Never, Never Know
Julie London | Cry Me A River
Eddie Fontaine | Cool It Baby
The Treniers | Rockin’ Is Our Business
Abbey Lincoln | Spread The Word
The Chuckles | Cinnamon Sinner
Johnny Mercer | Something’s Gotta Give
Jayne Mansfield (dubbed by Eileen Wilson) | Ev’rytime
USA lobby cards (complete set)
USA Keybook still of the empty set used for Gene Vincent’s scene
USA Eddie Cochran publicity still + newspaper ad
USA Jayne Mansfield standee ad
Fantastic artwork from Belgium and Germany.
It was in Amsterdan, in the City theater, sometime in the 1970s when
there was a special one night screening of The Girl … Before that the Legendary
Tielman Brothers did a half hour live performance. Dressed Elvis 70s style, they
didn’t cut it for me that night. The Girl is considered by many rock n roll fans
the best 50s music movie … Little Richard was great indeed, and so was Gene
and The Blue Caps in a ‘butchered’ Be Bop a Lula. Eddie looked and sounded
the part … but I had to chuckle seeing him try to move his body to the beat …
Besides Fats, I wasn’t familiar with the other performers (hey, remember, this
was back in the 70s!) and none really impressed me one bit. Leaving the cinema
that night had me think: nice movie, fun movie, but in no way up to the music
standards of the pre-Army Elvis movies …
To this day, Loving You is still by far the best rock n roll movie ever made …
I just LOVE this Rock N Roll movie, and own it on dvd and the soundtrack on cd. Sure, Loving You and Jailhouse Rock by Elvis are better, but there are some great Rock N Roll songs here by some of the originaters of this new BIG BEAT … and in colour.
And Jayne Mansfield was so much more sexier to look at than Marilyn Monroe.
“She’s got it all….!!!”
Great topic, Bob. Thank you.