4. The Girl Can’t Help It celebrated American rock and roll music in 1956
The 1956 motion picture The Girl Can’t Help It was not a critical success in the United States. The New York Times called its female lead, Jayne Mansfield, a “weak imitation of Marilyn Monroe”. But an unintended consequence of its release was its exposure of rock and roll music. Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino, The Platters, and Little Richard all appeared in the film as themselves. When the film was released in England in 1957, British teens were smitten with the film’s soundtrack, though Mansfield certainly made an impact on many as well. Demand for records from the American artists jumped in Great Britain.
Paul McCartney learned to play Twenty Flight Rock after seeing Eddie Cochran perform it in the film. Later that same summer he played it for a young John Lennon, cementing the partnership which later became The Beatles. The American performer Richard Penniman, already popular in Great Britain for his recording of Long Tall Sally and known as Little Richard, also scored another hit there with his recording of the film’s title song. For British teens, the previously unseen sources of the sounds they were hearing from America made the movie an icon, and prompted the formation of several groups, many of which would later travel to America with new sounds of their own.
