Nashville Girl

This is a good show about a hopeful, musically-inclined girl whose gifted talents are underestimated in the competitive entertainment world. The main actress Monica Gayle plays a country music fan who is attractive, intelligent, although somewhat naive, and intent on becoming a country music star herself. It seems almost to have an underlying theme of irony caused by cruelty toward the character played by Monica Gayle with its amount of hidden sex exploitation, but I respected and loved that she never feels demoralized all through the movie in her role and she stays persistently determined. The movie never gave the impression in my opinion of being stuck with a commonplace, routine kind of plot but instead it inspired viewers by Jamie's adventures. This film contains some fine country music made for the show. The DVD of this film has a clearly defined quality that is easy on the eyes and a smooth flowing story which kept me rooting for the girl known as Jamie Barker and on the edge of my seat all the way to the end of the film. The movie is a worthy to watch show even just to witness actress Monica Gayle's high-spirited acting and beauty in the movie. Truthfully though, I didn't understand the ending. Fans of country music and mature audiences can really stay tuned to this fine performance!!

So I hear Nashville Girl is a flick that all exploitation fans should enjoy. Well, after watching NG, I'd agree and disagree.

First the story, which revolves around young and innocent lovely deciding to run away from home and shoot for her dreams of becoming a country singer. It's a story-idea we've all watched before, from movie's about athletes reaching their goals to an actor hitting it big on the big screen. But with Nashville Girl this movie shows the oh-so real and seedy parts of the bizz. Which were all the reasons why this film is considered an exploit film. Sure it has some sleazy scenes, but nothing is graphic to the point of a double-take. That is where I disagree, the film barely felt like an exploitation classic. It felt like just a solid, well-made film. Obviously there are levels of exploitation when it comes down to an exploit flick, and I guess this is just one that measures a little low on the Sick Scale.

Nashville Girl overall though is a really good flick. With average to great acting by almost all involved the movie's emotional issues feel much more realistic. And with it's realistic approach, solid writing, and great soundtrack, the movie delivers far more than it fails to. If you're into exploit films and you're watching this for some heavy sleaze or violence, you may be slightly let-down. But don't dismay, Nashville Girl is a really good movie and one of the best "hicksploitation" flicks out there.

An abused teen escapes her rednecked family and allows country music entertainer Jeb Hubbard to make her swoon when he sings "Hold On Tight" at a fundraiser for the Tennessee Memorial Hospital, his favorite charity. Thoroughly swept from her feet, Jamie allows the singer's cohorts to reinvent her as a rising music star from Wheeling, West Virginia, complete with new name. But could her name eventually surpass Jeb's? Will her past (depicted earlier in the movie) come back to haunt her? "Today You'll Do Better (Than You Did Yesterday)" Jamie sings of her life... but not before paying her dues, and then some. This vastly underrated and underproduced film is well directed, believably acted and is awash in rich, singable tunes befitting a much larger production. This is one of those rare pieces that sticks with you for life (including many of its songs), somehow, through its movie magic -- magic made because it simply works, despite its feeble budget and production woes. Monica Gayle is fantastic and extremely memorable. "Nashville Girl" should have been the dawn of her career, not the twilight. Footnote: Most know of "Nashville Girl" thanks to a Showtime Network executive who was a fan of the picture and insisted on running it ad nauseam during the early nineteen-eighties. I had to vote this movie a 10 on IMDb simply because it stuck with me for all these years... so it actually earned its own "10".

This movie teams up two underrated talents from the 1970's. The first is director Gus Trikonis (the former Mr. Goldie Hawn) who directed big-screen exploitation flicks like "Swinging Barmaids" and "The Student Body", underrated horror fare like "The Evil", and superior made-for-TV movies like "The Darker Side of Terror". The second is actress Monica Gayle, a breath-taking natural beauty who spent a good portion of all her movies modeling her luscious birthday suit, and as a result perhaps was never really given her due as an actress. With the possible exception of "Strawberries Need Rain", this is her best film.

Gayle plays "Jamie", a sixteen-year-old runaway, who comes to Nashville to try to make it as a songwriter. Her character is not unlike the actress herself in that while she is actually genuinely talented, none of the loutish male agents and producers she interviews with seem to notice because they are all too busy trying to dip their wicks in her. One washed-up country music celebrity finally does take advantage of her MUSICAL talents, but he too eventually becomes possessed by her irresistible, nubile charms and for awhile this kind of turns into a low-budget, country-music version of "A Star is Born".

This is not exactly a feminist film. "Jamie" is forcibly raped twice, taken advantage of my every man she meets, and at one point even ends up in a juvenile detention center after she's caught in a massage parlor bust (while a client is giving HER a massage). And, of course, in the camp she falls prey to the stereotypical lesbian guard. Despite all the exploitative elements though, Trikonis crafts a fairly realistic movie that does really show the seedy side of Nashville. It's not "Coal Miner's Daughter", but it's not exactly trying to be either. It's also not Robert Altman's "Nashville", but I found it a lot more fun to watch. And I actually thought it was quite a bit BETTER than the 70's version of "A Star Is Born" (with the insufferable Barbra Streisand). The country music songs are quite good (although unlike Sissy Spacek, Karen Black, and a lot of the actresses in the aforementioned movies, Gayle's singing was quite obviously dubbed). I hadn't heard a lot of the songs before, but there is a good cover of the Bob Will's classic "Faded love". I'd definitely recommend this one.

New World's "Nashville Girl" begins with a hayseed young miss skinny-dipping in the lake and never strays from this path. In the lead, honey-mellowed Monica Gayle is an easy screen presence as a determined, talented country music songwriter with aspirations to work in Nashville, but the movie isn't interested in being a rags-to-riches story. Jailbait Gayle is continually ogled, pawed at, stripped and molested, while most of the men on her journey (and one lesbian, natch) are horny old-timers with one thing on their minds. Director Gus Trikonis and writer Peer J. Oppenheimer aren't smut peddlers, exactly--there's an outline of a story--and Oppenheimer provides salty hard luck travails for our heroine. Still, it's a jaded B-movie with one foot in the gutter: not entirely sleazy, but not at all inspiring. *1/2 from ****