A Chicago mobster hires a rock and roll singer and his band to keep an eye on his daughter during Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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It is a performances centric movie
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Girl Happy is a nice little movie starring Elvis Presley as Rusty Wells, a nightclub singer hired by Big Frank, a mobster, to watch his daughter, Valerie, who is played by Shelley Fabares.The movie is nothing special, a usual Elvis Presley movie that is supposed to give us an hour and a half of fun. The movie features a nice soundtrack with Elvis Presley as the lead singer, and if you listen carefully to the soundtrack and follow along with the movie, the soundtrack carries the plot of the film. The movie has its moments and one funny moment in the movie was a part where Rusty is trying to romance a girl even though he is in a romance with Valerie, and he has to keep Valerie out of his motel room well he is romancing this girl.I rated this the same as Jailhouse Rock, which is another Elvis movie that is perhaps more well-known than this one. I liked the soundtrack of this movie because I felt the songs were well-written and carried the plot of the movie. However unlike Jailhouse Rock, this movie did not require any acting. Any three guys around Elvis' age could have played the parts of Rusty's friends.Girl Happy is a nice movie featuring silly situations and a good soundtrack. It is nothing special by any means, but manages to deliver an hour and a half of quality entertainment. This movie is highly recommended for any Elvis Presley fan.
Girl Happy finds the King as lead singer of a group that consists also of Gary Crosby, Joby Baker, and Jimmy Hawkins. They're appearing at a club in Chicago run by mobster Harold J. Stone. They'd like to go to Fort Lauderdale to pick up both loose chicks and loose change as it is the spring season. Stone won't let them go. But an opportunity comes when Stone's daughter Shelley Fabares also wants to go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. Stone sends Elvis and the rest to go to Fort Lauderdale as unofficial chaperons.No need to go any father because as always happens the King finds it nice work and he's got it. But he also has former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley chasing him. We should all have such troubles.In the tradition of Presley pictures, Colonel Tom assembled a fine group of people before and behind the camera like veteran director Norman Taurog who has an Oscar to his credit. Besides those mentioned Nita Talbot plays a worldly stripper with good advice and a good routine with a newspaper outfit for her act. There's also John Fiedler as the motel manager and unofficial keeper of the morals of the youth of America and Jackie Coogan as a police sergeant.No great songs come from Girl Happy, but they're all in the Elvis Presley style and suit the film for him. Fans of Elvis will like the film as will others.
Another Elvis Presley movie, another cringe-inducing title: predictably, as trivial as can be but, surprisingly enough, quite a fun, comedic vehicle with Elvis and his band assigned to chaperone a gangster's teenage daughter at a holiday camp. Shelley Fabares is among Presley's cutest female leads (she would co-star with him twice more in just as many years) and at times reminded me of Martha Vickers's thumbsucking Carmen Sternwood in Howard Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP (1946)! Of course, the couple's eventual romance is complicated as much by the easily misunderstood situation as by their being needlessly involved with other partners.Familiar character actor Harold J. Stone, usually noted for drama, is the gangster but, while he plays it mostly straight, isn't exactly menacing either; the songs are a cut above-average, though "Do The Clam" a would-be instant 'beach blanket' hit is a definite low point! Former child star Jackie Coogan of Charles Chaplin's THE KID (1921) fame and who was then undergoing a brief career renaissance as the lunatic Uncle Fester in the cult TV series, THE ADDAMS FAMILY appears here as a flustered cop but his participation is, alas, an undistinguished one.Amazingly, I recently learned through a newspaper article written by a friend of my father's who happens to be the No. 1 Elvis fan I know and who was also the one to introduce me to home video technology back in 1985! that GIRL HAPPY was banned in Malta on original release (most probably due to a 'hot' striptease act the boys witness more than once during their runarounds after a tipsy Fabares)!!
Because they were just the perfect match of that time, to perform a such movie. It's the best movie of Elvis, combining many styles of music and appropriate dance of those golden years of rock, shake, and twist. Shelley did her best youngness' show performance together with Elvis. The movie revealed also one of the best team of dance around the King, on that empty beach with bushes, while performing "Do the Clam" song. If Fort Lauderdale could keep the tracks of that year buildings and entertainment resorts, it might be another business around Elvis.Do not forget to review from time to time the King and Shelley. It's a very good entertainment when you've got tired and dance lack of desire.