Girl Happy

Girl Happy follows Rusty Wells, a rock and roll singer whose band is finishing a club engagement in Chicago and looking forward to a holiday in Fort Lauderdale. Their plans change when a local gangster, Big Frank, hires them to keep watch over his daughter Valerie while she spends spring break in Florida with her friends. Rusty takes the job, and complications arise when a smooth-talking rival named Romano and his friends set their sights on Valerie and her group, forcing Rusty and his bandmates to step in.

The film is a musical comedy directed by Boris Sagal, appearing second in the chronological list of his features after Twilight of Honor and before Made in Paris. Elvis Presley plays Rusty, with Shelley Fabares as Valerie, Harold J. Stone as Big Frank, Gary Crosby, Joby Baker and Nita Talbot in supporting roles. R.S. Allen and Harvey Bullock wrote the screenplay, and Joe Pasternak produced.

Released in April 1965, the film runs 96 minutes and took about 3 million dollars at the worldwide box office. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.4 from roughly 3,200 votes, and on TMDB it also rates 6.4, from a much smaller base of 32 votes. Both figures point to a modest but enduring following rather than broad acclaim.