Nashville Girl (1976)

This is a good film about a hopeful, musically-inclined girl whose gifted talents are under estimated because others seek to take advantage of her in the tough, competitive entertainment world. The main actress Monica Gayle plays an innocent country girl fan who is attractive, intelligent although somewhat naive, and intent on becoming a country music star but those attempts are constantly thwarted by manipulative and pretending admirers in the big city of Nashville. It seems almost a semi-comical show with its amount of inferred sexual exploitation that a viewer could believe might be an exaggeration, but maybe not. Jamie gets manhandled time and again but she seems to withstand the pressure with a hard optimism, and stubborn determination. She meets some new and possibly friendly people, and some well-meaning, but there is truly not any good to come of her urgent cause. Are they sincerely wanting to help her? But she's only just a lonely, simple country girl after all. The show contains some playable easy listening music that also features an appearance by 1970's country singer Johnny Rodriguez and has a nice quality resolution picture. The plot has a smooth moving yet easy to follow story that kept my interest but the show ended with an unclear and baffling ending. This is an interesting and worthy film that is fun to watch if only just to witness actress Monica Gayle's high-spirited efforts and loveliness which will have you rooting for her even though it leads into an unknown future. Fans of country music and mature audiences could really stay tuned to it!

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".

You know you're in for a four-star 70's drive-in sleazy treat when barely two minutes into the picture the luscious and adorable Monica Gayle, a lovely sprite actress who appeared in trashy films for such B-movie luminaries as Jack Hill, Harry Novak, Gary Graver and Larry Buchanan, peels her clothes off to go skinny-dipping while the opening credits are still rolling. Of course, some vile, scummy degenerate hillbilly dude comes along and savagely rapes poor Monica, thus giving her a credible excuse to run away from home with acoustic guitar in tow and go to Nashville to make it as an honest-to-goodness country music star. The ever perky and appealing Gayle, as naive, but feisty and determined Loretta Lynn-like 16-year-old Kentucky hick chick Jamie Barker, receives a ride into town from gruff trucker Leo Gordon and promptly learns that the only way to really make it in Nashville is by making love with the right powerful music biz people. Pretty soon Jamie is gladly hopping in the sack with every lecherous older man who's got the hots for her. Alas, Jamie runs low on cash and is forced to work at a seedy massage parlor as a receptionist. And, wouldn't you know it, Jamie gets arrested and has to do hard time at a prison work farm where one of the predatory lesbian guards sexually assaults her in the shower! Fortunately, Jamie gets paroled and befriends nice guy session musician Kelly (amiably played by "Flash and the Firecat" 's Roger Davis), who introduces her to country music superstar Jeb Hubbard (burly Glen Corbett), an overbearing jerk of a control freak with a fatal weakness for young girls. Hubbard makes Jamie his protégé, renames her Melody Mason, and turns her into the major league star she always dreamed of being. But this overnight fame and fortune comes at a terrible price, with Jamie becoming increasingly lonely, cynical, arrogant and disillusioned as her innocence gets irrevocably shattered.Boy, talk about a wildly colorful and eventful never-a-dull-minute busy narrative! Better still, along with the abundant Gayle nudity, Gus Trikonis' brisk, get-right-to-the-point efficient direction, several astounding scenes featuring Gayle singing both in the recording studio and on stage with a (dubbed?) strong, brassy contralto voice, a standard rags-to-riches story that becomes more delightfully lurid and melodramatic as the movie progresses forward (in fact, this entire picture plays like a tightly streamlined $1.98 discount version of "Coal Miner's Daughter"), a cameo appearance by mid-level country-and-western singer Johnny Rodriguez as himself, and a funny performance by late, great character actor Jesse White as a greedy dirtbag music publisher, this fabulous grindhouse gem even comes complete with a sincere cautionary morale: Country music superstardom ain't exactly what it's cracked up to be. Now, that's precisely what prime 70's exploitation cinema is all about: sex, bare skin, scuzzy plot twists and, most importantly, a redeeming pertinent social message, too!