The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966)

Film: The Las Vegas Hillbillys (1966)
Stars: Ferlin Husky, Jayne Mansfield, Mamie van Doren, Don Bowman, Billie Bird
Director: Arthur C. Pierce
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Jayne Mansfield-click here to learn more about Ms. Mansfield (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We are going to end our look at the career of Jayne Mansfield in a place that she'd probably prefer we forget.  As we mentioned last week, Mansfield's turn in Promises! Promises! gave the actress something rare in Hollywood: a second chance.  She'd had a big hit, and after years of being "passé," offers were starting to come in.  Mansfield was even given a role once intended for Marilyn Monroe, the lead in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid, but once again Mansfield was pregnant (this time with future Law & Order star Mariska Hargitay), once again the part went to Kim Novak, and once again it was a big hit, the kind that might have cemented Mansfield's comeback, but instead, Jayne quickly was relegated back to Grade Z pictures, which led to today's film The Las Vegas Hillbillys, most noted today for being the only onscreen meeting of two of the "Three M's," as the picture features both Mansfield and her off-screen nemesis Mamie van Doren.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Woody (Husky), a bumpkin who inherits his uncle's Las Vegas bar, as well as the beautiful woman who sings at it Boots Malone (van Doren), who is under contract to sing at the establishment.  While driving there with his buddy Jeepers (Bowman), they come across another beautiful blonde Tawny (Mansfield), who is a big headliner in Vegas, and gives them some breaks throughout the film, as they are at risk of losing the bar.  In the end, Tawny and Woody's aunt (Bird) save the bar from going down by recruiting a bunch of big-name country singers (vocalists like Connie Smith, Bill Anderson, and Roy Drusky play themselves throughout the movie's many extended country songs), to perform, and the money & crowds get them enough money to pay off the creditors.  Oh, and Boots & Woody end up together because, well, why not (this is really out of the blue in the film)?

The movie is really bad, and not quite in a campy enough way, though there are times it comes close.  Probably the best pop culture reference here is not The Beverly Hillbillies (though that was clearly who they were trying to piggyback on with the title), but Hee Haw, which wouldn't come out for a few years after the film came out.  The best performance in the film comes from van Doren, who can sing (even if she's a bit more rock-and-roll than country), and seems to get that this is a paycheck, but at least you get to be in a movie.  Mansfield's part is pretty slim-she's in maybe three scenes in the movie despite her high billing, and she's in the background of one of them.  It's also not clear exactly what the point of her character is-she plays her like a vamp who is smitten with Woody, but she never makes a move on Woody or tries to double-cross him.  The movie is, well, low stakes in that regard.

Mansfield refused to appear onscreen with van Doren.  The actresses only have one scene together, but they were filmed apart, and it shows.  Thus, this kind of ruins the camp factor of the picture-any modern film fan would be watching to see what it's like when these two actresses face off, and deprived of that, this isn't worth the time.  It is, however, a good portrait of what might have happened with Mansfield's career since both she & van Doren were in the same place professionally at this point.  Van Doren has said in interviews that after Marilyn's death, the public didn't want to look at women who looked like Monroe, as it made them sad, and so it was harder to get work.  She did, however, continue making these kinds of campy films for the rest of the 1960's, before becoming a successful nightclub performer & regular USO Tour performer during Vietnam, writing a celebrated memoir (she's supposedly working on a followup), getting a star on the Walk of Fame, becoming a Pulp Fiction punchline, and posing for a famed photo with a future generation's sex symbol.  All-in-all, while Las Vegas Hillbillys wasn't a high point in her career, Mamie van Doren, now age 89, has had a full and solidly successful life.

Jayne Mansfield, of course, did not achieve that.  She never had another leading role during her lifetime, and would die just over a year after the film's release.  Mansfield, unlike Marilyn, doesn't have a lot of mystery surrounding her demise, but it was just as brutal & sudden.  She died on June 29th, 1967, after the car she was driving in ran into a tractor-trailer outside of New Orleans, and died instantly, her skull crushing upon impact (she was not, as stated in urban legend, decapitated).  As a result, the 34-year-old actress who spent her entire career trying to be Marilyn Monroe, ended up mirroring her in the most horrific way imaginable.  Next month, we will move on to one last blonde sex symbol of the 1950's whose career would last well past Marilyn & Jayne's, sometimes to great success, and more often, infamy.