This newly released DVD set collects three of Jayne Mansfield’s late 1950s films: The Girl Can’t Help It, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and the lesser known and lesser quality Sheriff of Fractured Jaw. Why they didn’t include Kiss Them for Me instead only God and the marketing execs at Twentieth Century Fox could ever know.
The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) co-stars Tom Ewell and Edmond O’Brien in a comedy about a down-and-out gangster who hires an alcoholic press agent to make his blonde bombshell girlfriend a recording star in 6 weeks. But what is he going to do when he finds out that she has no talent? And what is going to happen when the two fall in love?
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) co-stars Tony Randall, Betsy Drake, and Joan Blondell in a spoof of the TV advertising industry. Rockwell Hunter has found the perfect spokesmodel for Stay-Put lipstick, his big account. When Rita Marlowe, the famous actress with the oh-so-kissable lips, comes to New York he knows it’s his big chance, but in order to secure the account, Rock has to pretend to be Rita's "Lover Doll." Is Rock cut out to be a high power executive after all?
Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw (1958) A proper English gentleman, traveling in the American West, inadvertently stops an Indian attack on the stagecoach in which he is a passenger. When the stage gets to the nearest town, the raucous Fractured Jaw, it is being plagued by unruly cowboys, bandits, and marauding Indians. Our English gentleman quashes the mayhem and is appointed sheriff.
In addition to these three movies the DVD includes a 2001 documentary on Mansfield’s life as well as bonus extras on the constructed nature of Hollywood celebrity in the '50s and a discussion of how the Tashlin/Mansfield films reflect the concerns and ideas of 1950s America.
Official Jayne Mansfield Website
Jayne Mansfield on Find A Death
Jayne Mansfield Made a Career Being A Girl
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