33 1/3 REVOLUTIONS PER MONKEE

Like some people I'm not a Monkee hater, I always thought they had some good tunes and their TV show was a mild diversion but, I have to say, this TV special Sucks! The main problem: not enough Monkees and Too Much Brian Auger and Trinity with Julie Driscoll (a group nowhere near as good or as important as they imagined themselves).
There is so much Auger and Driscoll that it made 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee seem like it's their special with The Monkees simply being guest stars. To further add to my misery while watching this special, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Fats Domino are featured only briefly and are used primarily as backing for Auger and The Monkees.


33 1/3 Revolutions has a plot of sorts, what I guess someone thought was "heavy man" (Hey! It was 1969!): The Monkees are stripped of their personalities and then molded back into plasticized Pop Stars and at the end of the special given their freedom to be individuals again. All of this is orchestrated for the most part by Auger and Driscoll. The Monkees dress up as robots and sing "Wind Up Man", this is followed by a scene with Auger in a stack of piano players (with himself at the top) and Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Fats Domino all under him. This is the point where I almost became disgusted enough to turn the whole thing off. Next, Darwin (yes, it is supposed to be that Darwin) takes over and Paul Arnold and the Moon Express do an expressive dance....once again, I had thoughts of ending my misery.


Each Monkee, under the watchful eyes of Auger/Driscoll, gets a solo in order to discover their own personality: Mickey sings a funky "I'm a Believer", Peter gets all Eastern mystical with "I Prithee (Do Not Ask For Love)," Mike comes off best doing a split screen duo with himself with a country tune "Naked Persimmon (The Only Thing I Believe Is True)"and Davy, dressed as a toy and true to his musical theater roots, sings and dances to "Goldilocks Sometime."


33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee continued to go downhill for me as The Monkees, dressed as apes, performed Neil Sedaka's "I Go Ape", the "ape" Monkees evolve into a 1950s group and Auger introduces them as "idolized, plasticized, psychoanalyzed, and sterilized". The Monkees do a medley of 50s hits with Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis having very short song segments. Fats Domino gets slightly more screen time than the other two, although Jerry Lee steals the show in the few seconds he is on screen.


Auger decides the group should have complete freedom which leads to the final segment. Davy begins by singing "String For My Kite". Peter enters and shows off his skills on the harpsichord. Mickey and Mike show up and a party scene (extras were rounded up off Sunset Strip) develops with The Monkees, Buddy Miles Express, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll, and Trinity all joining in on "Listen To The Band". The special closes on a book with a page reading "Chaos Is Come Again" and as the book closes we see the back cover reads "The Beginning of the End", which is apt since this is the last time The Monkees would perform as a quartet until 1986. 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee was such a disaster that two other planned specials featuring the group were deservedly scrapped.

THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT

After watching several movies built around rock/country music with the plot secondary to the music, it was refreshing to see this light romantic comedy where the musical performances are integrated into the plot. Unlike some of the similar movies from this time period, The Girl Can't Help It (GCHI) could easily exist without the music acts and still be entertaining.


A gangster (Edmund O'Brien) wants to reclaim the limelight from his golden years of fame. His plan is to make his girlfriend (Jayne Mansfield) into a famous pop singer, then he'll marry her and as the husband of someone famous he'll have his name back in the newspapers. Of course, in today's world O'Brien would be counting on getting his own reality show. O'Brien hooks a washed up press agent (Tom Ewell) into his plan and everything is set to go. Only a couple of problems: Jayne can't sing, she'd rather be a housewife, and as if we didn't know this was going to happen - Jayne and Tom fall in Love.


Using the construct of the music business enables GCHI to include musical acts as part of the story. The very first music act we see in the movie is Nino Tempo (No April!) performing in a nightclub where Tom is sitting alone drinking. As the movie rolls along we get perfomances from Little Richard, Eddie Fontaine, Johnny Olenn, The Chuckles, Abbey Lincoln, Julie London, Gene Vincent And His Blue Caps, Eddie Cochran, The Treniers, Fats Domino, The Platters, and Ray Anthony


Tom gets a phone call at the nightclub to come talk about a job. Since Tom recognizes the address to be in a ritzy part of town, he agrees and that's when he first meets up with O'Brien and gets drawn into the plan; but more importantly, this sequence also includes the first appearance of Jayne Mansfield. She throws open some connecting doors and the director frames her in the doorway. With her perfect hourglass figure, I can only imagine the audience "gasping" when they first saw her on the big screen. Frank Tashlin, the director, who previously directed cartoons, has been quoted as saying "big breasts were some of the funniest things going". GCHI has a lot of of cartoon elements, including a great sight gag sequence as Jayne makes the Iceman's ice melt, the Milkman's milk explode and another man's glasses crack. The below photo from the movie seems to combine Tashlin's thinking about big breasts and a sight gag into one shot.


As with any movie with so many great music acts, everyone will have their favorite(s). I especially liked Little Richard and Fats Domino, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that they are both already two of my favorite performers and I'm thrilled anytime I get to see them. There really wasn't a bad or boring musical performance with any of the acts, which isn't always the case when so many performers are included in one movie. Julie London appears in a sultry dream sequence singing "Cry Me A River" that is still embedded in my brain.


GCHI is available in a DVD box set that includes "The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw" and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?' OR You can rent it through Netflix OR catch it on The Fox Movie Channel, since it seems they show it at least once a month (sometimes more than once a month!)