You can split movie buffs into two groups based on their reaction
to the newly released
The Jayne Mansfield Collection, a set
of three films previously unavailable on DVD. The first group
would look at this and think "Wow, a Jayne Mansfield collection"
while the second would think "Wow, a Frank Tashlin collection."
Mansfield, of course, was one of the Fifties' string of famously
bountiful blondes that ran from Marilyn Monroe at the top to Mamie
Van Doren down to Cleo Moore. As such Mansfield will always have
her fans but Frank Tashlin was a different matter. A former
animator (boasting Disney and Warners' infamous "Termite Terrace"
under his belt), Tashlin was addicted to speed, bright colors and
uncontrollable comic twitches. Whether he learned this from his
time in the cartoon trenches or was driven to animation by innate
tendencies doesn't much matter; Tashlin was American cinema's
gut-bucket satirist and a direct, openly acknowledged influence on
the French New Wave. He directed many of Jerry Lewis' wildest
films (such as
Artists and Models) and possibly for that
reason has often been dismissed. If you want to know why Tashlin
deserves full respect then just watch two of his best films that
are included in this set.
For a start check out the opening to
The Girl Can't Help It
(1956). Tom Ewell (
The Seven-Year Itch) walks "on stage"
and directly addresses the audience inside a movie image that's an
almost-square black-and-white box. He seems a bit dissatisfied
then uses his fingers to flick the sides of the box until it
expands to wide CinemaScope proportions. Ewell then calls for
color by DeLuxe and sure enough a vibrant wash of color spreads
across the image. Gimmicky? Perhaps but played with lightness and
a wink that perfectly sets the tone for the film.
In
The Girl Can't Help It Ewell is a washed-up talent agent
hooked by a washed-up mobster (
DOA's Edmond O'Brien) to turn
his girlfriend into the newest singing sensation. The girlfriend
(Mansfield of course) is a strictly hands-off proposition for Ewell
but of course nothing turns out quite as planned. Not the most
promising story and it was pretty threadworn even at the time (even
echoed decades later in
Pulp Fiction). But that's hardly
the point. The studio apparently saw the film as an opportunity to
cash in on the newest musical fad (some now-forgotten style called
rock 'n' roll) while Tashlin and his script collaborator Herbert
Baker took the opportunity to unleash their imaginations, most
famously on a string of quasi-vulgar sight gags when Mansfield
first walks to Ewell's apartment. But it avoids both crudeness and
post-vaudevillean schtick because of the lack of bitterness in
Tashlin's view; his sentimental streak poked through from time to
time and he was never able to condemn any character to a fated
doom, however comic.
For rock fans, the movie is simply required viewing. A string of
greats make appearances including Little Richard, Gene Vincent,
Fats Domino and Eddie Cochran, at the top of their powers and
mostly playing songs uninterrupted (one unfortunate exception being
brief dialogue in the middle of a Little Richard performance.)
Half a century later you can still feel the transgressive energy
powering them and that in fact becomes a plot point in the film.
Even the now partially forgotten The Treniers turn in one of their
best songs and though she's not remotely rock 'n' roll Julie
London's singing is, well, unforgettable. It's interesting in
hindsight how much the film gets right about early rock but there
are still a couple of ringers such as The Chuckles (formerly The
Three Chuckles), a pre-rock Italian combo that featured an
accordion! By the way, that is indeed Little Richard's theme "The
Girl Can't Help It" currently sampled by pop singer Fergie in her
song "Clumsy."
However amazing
The Girl Can't Help It is, Tashlin was just
warming up.
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, released the
following year, is an astonishing free-for-all against pop culture
and celebrating it: advertising, fan clubs, television, sex
symbols, media manipulation and even Tashlin's own films (
The
Girl Can't Help It is mentioned twice and not necessarily
favorably). Originally
Rock Hunter was a Broadway play by
George Axelrod (
The Seven-Year Itch again) but apparently
that source wasn't followed very strictly so that in some ways the
film resembles
The Girl Can't Help It. This time it's Tony
Randall who encounters Mansfield. He's a low-level advertising
writer happily engaged to be married who decides that the best way
to save his company's chief money-making account (Stay-Put
lipstick) is to enlist movie star Rita Marlowe (Mansfield). He
manages to sneak a meeting to discover that she's more interested
in creating a fictional romance to create jealousy in her boyfriend
(Mansfield's real-life amour and future husband Mickey Hargitay)
but is willing to play along with Randall's game.
Again nothing goes quite as planned. Everybody in
Rock
Hunter is pursuing their own version of the American Dream: a
key to the private executive washroom, celebrity, money, a quiet
home life. That they don't all agree on the Dream is part of the
point; they're all frantic and driven towards something they may or
may not really want. And it only gets more complex when you
realize that pretty much everybody in the film is also manipulating
everybody else's idea of the Dream. Again a more cynical filmmaker
would have created a different, darker film (see Billy Wilder's
Ace in the Hole for an example) but for Tashlin it's almost
like he was kidding members of his own family. Maybe that's one
reason Tony Randall's common-guy likability and open confusion
works so well. He has just the right plausibility as he swings
from meek writer to a temporary Great Lover to just a conflicted
man.
Rock Hunter is farce but with a human heart.
What about Mansfield in all this? She was nearly perfect for
Tashlin's purposes, a celebrity mostly famous for being famous, and
not her fairly routine talents. She was always excessive and not
entirely respectable, "sexy" but never sexy. So Tashlin never uses
her straight but makes twists to her characters. In
The Girl
Can't Help It Mansfield may appear to be a blonde bombshell but
deep down she really just wants to be domestic. Ewell shouldn't be
attracted to her but, well, can't help it. In
Rock Hunter
she may be a media-circus film star but slowly decides maybe that's
not right for her (though this strand isn't really resolved in the
film). Randall should be attracted to her but the film's most
charming aspect is that he's so deeply in love with his fiancee
that Mansfield's character registers only as an abstraction.
Rounding out the set is a non-Tashlin film Mansfield made in 1958,
the Western-comedy
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw. Directed
by a past-his-prime Raoul Walsh and supposedly the first Western
filmed in Spain,
Sheriff is practically a catalog of
anything you'd expect to see in a Western including a range war,
Indian attacks, poker game, saloon shootout, tenderfoot pistol
training and of course a crash course in sheriffing. Throw in some
song-and-dance numbers (Mansfield is a saloon keeper) and it's a
somewhat entertaining but completely lightweight outing.
The DVDs in the
Jayne Mansfield Collection have clean
transfers of the films and even more importantly are properly
letterboxed. Nobody quite makes 'Scope films like these anymore;
they probably wouldn't even be worth watching panned-and-scanned.
The extras include a few trailers and an interesting but
predictable
A&E Biography episode about Mansfield. The two
Tashlin films have commentaries, both a bit too professorial to be
particularly interesting if you're not getting class
credit.
For more information about
The Jayne Mansfield Collection,
visit
Fox Home
Entertainment. To order
The Jayne Mansfield Collection,
go to
TCM
Shopping.
by Lang Thompson
