Girl Happy

Girl Happy
April 14, 1965
MGM
Musical, Comedy
VHS
C+

Almost a decade into his film career, Elvis was cranking these out at a rate of about three per year, although this is the oldest one I own.  (I used to have Kissing Cousins, 1964.)  Some are forgettable, some are moderately entertaining, and some are screamingly hilarious.  This is one of the moderately entertaining ones.  The songs are pretty good, although they do have some of the oddest titles, notably "Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce."  (Confusingly, "Do the Clam" is in this rather than Clambake.)  Despite the movie's title, Elvis romances only two girls, Mary Ann Mobley (looking rather sexy for a Miss America of the time) and Shelley Fabares.  The latter is playing a 21-year-old and was 21 in real life as well but already an acting veteran (The Donna Reed Show in particular).  She would team up with Elvis again.  My favorite "girl," however, is 34-year-old Nita Talbot, who plays the stripper Sunny Daze.  Her professional costume looks like newspapers, but she later wears a dress that she loans to Elvis so he can break out of jail, after breaking in.  (Don't ask.)  I would've given the movie a B- if she were in it more, or if any of the rest of the supporting cast could've come close to her contributions.

Elvis plays a singer in this one and he's got a trio of comic-relief actors who lip-sync to the Jordanaires somewhat convincingly.  Jimmy Hawkins, who's Doc (the naive one), was Tommy Bailey at age 5 in It's a Wonderful Life, and he would be Larry in Spinout.  Joby Baker, Wilbur here, is probably best known as Stinky/Judge in the Gidget movies.  (Gary Crosby, Bing's son, is the third of "the three blind mice.")

Peter Brooks, who plays nerdy Brentwood Von Durgenfeld, was forgettable Clay (with the umbrella) in Gidget Goes to Rome.  Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty was muscleman Biff in Muscle Beach Party and he's Charlie here.  (His next role would be in Easy Rider, which I've never seen.)  Norman Grabowski plays a jock college student here, as he does in the Merlin Jones movies.  Lyn Edgington was in Dear Brigitte.  Jackie Coogan (playing Sgt. Benson here), Jim Dawson, Milton Frome, Kent McCord, and Olan Soule were all recently in John Goldfarb.

Red West was in John Goldfarb and would be in Spinout the next year.  (He was a close friend of Elvis's.)  Gail Gilmore and Chris Noel would do Beach Ball.  Nancy Czar, "Blonde on Beach," would be Gloria "Jonesy" Jones in Winter A-Go-Go, while Beverly Adams, here "Girl #2," would be Jo Ann Wallace in WaGG, but more importantly be sort of the title character in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.   Tommy Farrell, Louis here, would be a reporter in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!  Hank Jones would be in The One and Only...Family Band.