The Trouble with Girls (film)

In a small Iowa town in 1927, a traveling Chautauqua company arrives, with internal squabbles dividing the troupe. The new manager, Walter Hale, is trying to prevent Charlene, the troupe's "Story Lady", from recruiting the performers to form a union. Meanwhile, the town has a scandal following the murder of the local pharmacist Wilby. Although a shady gambler is arrested, Walter realizes that the real killer is Nita, one of Wilby's employees. Walter successfully gets Nita to confess during a Chautauqua performance, where she makes public the sexual harassment that Wilby directed at her. Nita's self-defense plea frees the wrongly jailed man, but Charlene is outraged that Walter used the crime to financially enrich the Chautauqua, and attempts to quit. Walter attempts to reason with Charlene, but when she refuses to give in, he deceives her and uses the local police force to be sure that she must leave on the train with the rest of the troupe. ==Cast==

• Elvis Presley as Walter Hale • Marlyn Mason as Charlene • Nicole Jaffe as Betty Smith • Sheree North as Nita Bix • Edward Andrews as Johnny • John Carradine as Mr. Drewcolt • Vincent Price as Mr. Morality • Dabney Coleman as Harrison Wilby • Duke Snider as The Cranker • Anissa Jones as Carol Bix • John Rubinstein as Princeton College kid • Frank Welker as Rutgers College kid • Joyce Van Patten as The Swimmer • Pepe Brown as Willy Cast notes • Anissa Jones, best known for playing Buffy on the television program Family Affair, made her only film appearance in The Trouble with Girls. • Nicole Jaffe and Frank Welker went on to become regular members of the voice cast for the Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo, which debuted on CBS ten days after the release of The Trouble with Girls. • Danny Bonaduce, later to play Danny Partridge on TV's The Partridge Family, and Susan Olsen, soon to be Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch, both appear uncredited in small roles during the auditions sequence: Bonaduce as a one-man band and Olsen as a child singer. ==Production and release==

Development In June 1959 it was announced that Don Mankiewicz would write a screenplay of an unpublished story by Mauri Grashin, Day Keene, and Dwight Babcock. By December 1960, with the project titled Chautauqua, MGM was ready to make the film with Glenn Ford. Rumours circulating in Hollywood at the time stated that Presley would co-star with Ford, Hope Lange, and Arthur O'Connell, After several years of failed screenplays and cast changes, MGM sold the rights to Columbia Pictures in May 1965. Filming Elvis Presley was paid $850,000 plus 50% of the profits. Production ran from October 28 to December 18, 1968. In some cinemas The Green Slime was billed with this film. Production photos of Elvis and co-star Marlyn Mason with machine guns and cigars has long been considered proof of an alternative cut of the film that's far more violent and influenced by Bonnie and Clyde. In the photos Elvis is seen posing with a Tommy gun. Elvis also isn't seen in any scenes in the film with Vincent Price. It's thought that Elvis and Price share scenes in this lost cut of the film. Reception The Trouble with Girls (and How to Get into It) performed poorly in cinemas but strongly on the drive-in circuit. Roger Greenspun of The New York Times called it "a charming though ineptly titled comedy" with Presley performing "a reasonably developed characterization as the chautauqua company manager, and he sings very well." Variety wrote, "Elvis Presley is lost in this one. Without star’s usual assortment of 10 to 12 songs, and numbers cut down to a bare three, picture has little to offer. Title suggests a gay comedy but it’s a mass of contrived melodramatics and uninteresting performances that do not jell into anything but program fare." Margaret Harford of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "never makes up its mind where to go and how to get there ... The trouble with the picture is not girls; it's indecision by the writers, Arnold and Lois Peyser about whether we should laugh at the corny entertainment of 40-odd years ago, or cry over the troubles of a lonely widow who drinks too much." The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "The plot's rather curious blend of amateur theatricals, folksy humour and straight melodrama strains credulity even for a Presley film, and the few songs are instantly forgettable. Vincent Price makes an odd and quite appealing guest appearance as an itinerant lecturer known as Mr. Morality, but Presley himself seems uninterested in the whole affair." ==Soundtrack==

Entering the studio for The Trouble with Girls, Presley found himself in the position of knowing he had the goods in the can with his looming comeback television special but given that his last three singles – "You'll Never Walk Alone," "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby," "A Little Less Conversation" – and the Speedway album all tanked, faced a practically dead recording career. The soundtrack contained some minor songs, its only distinctive track by Billy Strange, the producer of the session, and Mac Davis. The other songs would wait to be issued until RCA's soundtrack compilations of the 1990s combining released songs and outtakes from multiple films on one compact disc. Tracks • "Clean Up Your Own Backyard" (Billy Strange and Mac Davis) • "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" (traditional, arranged by Elvis Presley) • "Signs of the Zodiac" (Buddy Kaye and Ben Weisman, Duet with Marlyn Mason) • "Almost" (Buddy Kaye and Ben Weisman) • "The Whiffenpoof Song" (Ted Galloway, Meade Minnigerode, George Pomeroy; not used in film) • "Violet (Flower of NYU)" (Steven Dueker and Peter Lohstroh) – The second adaptation in Presley's career of the American Civil War song "Aura Lee" from 1861, the first being the song "Love Me Tender". Notes • In some versions of the soundtrack, "Doodle Doo Doo" is included, performed by Linda Sue Risk, who plays Lily-Jeanne, the mayor's daughter. In the film, the song is performed by Anissa Jones, who plays Carol Bix. • "Clean Up Your Own Backyard" is noted for its anachronistic nature for a film set in 1927, from its modern-style arrangement to a verse referencing the term "armchair quarterback" which did not enter general use until the advent of television some 20 years after the setting of the film. Personnel • Elvis Presley – vocals • The Blossoms, The Mellomen – backing vocals • Jack Halloran, Ronald Hicklin, Marilyn Mason – backing vocals • Roy Caton – trumpet • Lew McCreary – trombone • Buddy Collette – clarinet • Gerry McGee, Joseph Gibbons, Morton Marker – electric guitar • Don Randi – piano • Max Bennett – bass • John Guerin, Frank Carlson – drums ==Home media==

The Trouble With Girls was released on homevideo in December 1988. It was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on August 7, 2007, as a Region 1 widescreen DVD. ==See also==