JAYNE Mansfield, often called the poorman’s Marilyn Monroe, was another staggeringly endowed bottle blonde with a baby-doll voice who rose to Hollywood stardom in the 1950s – and died tragically in the 1960s.
Mansfield, probably best known these days as the mother of “Law and Order: SVU” star Mariska Hargitay, is getting another 15 minutes in the spotlight thanks to showings of her two best films – make that her only good films – at Film Forum.
While her acting abilities never came close to matching her ambition, Mansfield was lucky enough to hook up on these pictures with director Frank Tashlin, a former Warner Bros. animator who immortalized her as a sort of running sight gag and brilliantly exploited Mansfield’s gift for self-mockery.
Unlike the more ethereal and vulnerable Monroe, Mansfield – who reportedly had an IQ of 165 – always seemed to be in on the joke.
In “The Girl Can’t Help It” (1956), which begins a one-week run tomorrow, Mansfield is cast as the girlfriend of a New York gangster who hires a down-on-his-luck press agent (Tom Ewell, who had just partnered with Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch”) to turn her into a singing star.
Her talents, of course, are limited to wriggling her posterior in tight gowns and holding milk bottles in front of her breasts. This bright spoof of pop culture includes performances by many early rock performers, including Little Richard, Gene Vincent and the Platters.
Even better – the pinnacle of Mansfield and Tashlin’s careers – is “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” (1957), which plays Sept. 1 and 2 (as part of a Tashlin retrospective) and was recently issued on DVD by Fox along with “The Girl Can’t Help It.”
“Hunter” is a pointed and hilarious satire of Madison Avenue that casts Mansfield as a dizzy movie star who squeals every time she speaks. She turns a schnooky TV commercial writer (Tony Randall) into a romantic celebrity to get even with her ex-boyfriend (played in a cameo by Mansfield’s real-life husband, and Mariska’s dad, Hungarian muscleman Mickey Hargitay).
Tashlin spectacularly flaunts his scantily clad star’s 40-21-35 ½ dimensions and her breathy delivery, including phone conversations with Ed Sullivan and The Post’s Earl Wilson.
The writer-director also works in plugs for at least a dozen contemporary movies from 20th Century Fox, the studio that employed both Mansfield and Monroe. Most memorably, Mansfield is seen reclining in a bubble bath reading “Peyton Place.”
After Tashlin moved on to become Jerry Lewis’ favorite director, it was all downhill for Mansfield, who appeared in increasingly cheap and tawdry films and performed in nightclubs up until her death in a grisly automobile accident in 1968.
But these two brightly colored films show why she was an icon of 1950s sexuality – though not one with the shelf life of Monroe.
Film Forum is on West Houston Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street. Info: filmforum.org
