The Trouble with Girls (film)
| The Trouble with Girls | |
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theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Peter Tewksbury |
| Produced by | Lester Welch |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on |
Chautauqua by Day Keene and Dwight V. Babcock |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Billy Strange |
| Cinematography | Jacques R. Marquette |
| Edited by | Al Clark |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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99 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Trouble with Girls, the full title of which is The Trouble with Girls (and How to Get into It), is a 1969 film starring Elvis Presley. It was one of his final acting roles, along with the same year's Change of Habit. It is based on the 1960 novel Chautauqua by Day Keene and Dwight Vincent Babcock.
In a small Iowa town in 1927, a traveling Chautauqua company arrives, with internal squabbles dividing the troupe. The new manager, Walter Hale (Elvis Presley), is trying to prevent Charlene, the troupe's "Story Lady" (Marlyn Mason), from recruiting the performers to form a union.
Meanwhile, the town has a scandal following the murder of the local pharmacist Wilby (Dabney Coleman). Although a shady gambler is arrested, Walter realizes that the real killer is Nita (Sheree North), 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 notes
In June 1959 it was announced that Don Mankiewicz would write a screenplay of an unpublished story by Mauri Grashin, Day Keene, and Dwight Babcock.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, but nothing came of it and the film was shelved.
In 1964, Dick Van Dyke had been signed up to star in a film titled Chautauqua based on a book called Morally We Roll Along by Gay MacLaren. After several years of failed screenplays and cast changes, MGM sold the rights to Columbia Pictures in May 1965. Columbia also struggled to get the project off the ground, and in April 1968 sold the rights back to MGM. This time MGM lined up Presley to star and production began in the fall of 1968. Chautauqua was the working title, but it was later changed to The Trouble with Girls when the producers worried that audiences would not understand the title or be able to pronounce it.
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