“There’s nothin’ in the world more hysterical to me than big-breasted women,” said director Frank Tashlin once in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich. That accounts for about half of the jokes in this frothy rock ‘n’ roll comedy that showcases Jayne Mansfield as a budding singing star. She’s got a 40-18-36 figure and a wardrobe full of tight dresses. When she’s not driving men to comical distraction merely by walking by, double-entendres (both verbal and visual) about her hourglass proportions fly freely. Meanwhile, Tom Ewell is the talent agent who’s hired to get her music career going. He’s known to keep things on a strict business level with his lady clients, but he falls for Jayne Mansfield because a) she’s Jayne Mansfield and b) she doesn’t even want to be a singer in the first place. The whole pursuit is her gangster boyfriend’s idea. She’d rather be a housewife, cooking dinners and popping out babies. This is pure 1950s, but it holds up as a sweet comedy (everyone gets a happy ending, even the bad guys) and an enduring cult movie for its racy jokes and musical appearances from the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and The Platters, all lip-syncing their hits.
Frank Tashlin worked in animation for the first sixteen years of his career and many gags here are pure cartoon. Via Tashlin’s eye, Jayne Mansfield is a sexy woman and a cartoon-like parody of a sexy woman at the same time. Meanwhile, characters sometimes break the fourth wall and Tashlin starts the whole thing off with clever gags about the Cinemascope screen and Technicolor. The film never stops moving. Even the music sequences don’t slow things down. They’re often part of the story. It’s little wonder that Tashlin later became one of the more celebrated American auteurs to the French New Wave.