Wonderful character development!

Very disappointed :(

Absolutely brilliant

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

An endearing performance by lovely 70s starlet Monica Gayle ("Switchblade Sisters") is the centerpiece of this low budget, exploitative Roger Corman spin on a "Coal Miner's Daughter" type of story. Monica plays Jamie Barker, a teenage girl who leaves home, and hits the road to Nashville, with visions of country music stardom dancing in her head. She finds it to be a very bumpy road, since almost every male in sight is sleazy to one degree or another. Things start to look up when she makes the acquaintance of session musician Kelly (Roger Davis, 'Dark Shadows'), and country star Jeb Hubbard (Glenn Corbett, 'Route 66')."Nashville Girl" was written & produced by Peer J. Oppenheimer ('Operation C.I.A.'), and directed by one of the under rated filmmakers of the decade, Gus Trikonis ("Moonshine County Express"). It's a not uninteresting walk on the dark side of Nashville; as the story progresses, there's just one constant string of male characters who seem more interested in getting into Jamies' pants rather than helping her career.It is disheartening to see how often guys will take advantage of our heroine. It's likewise unfortunate to see her have a tough time making money. At one point, despite her misgivings, she takes a job as a masseuse. The good news is that there are some helpful female influences in her life, such as Frisky (Shirley Jo Finney, "The River Niger") and Jebs' wife Fran (Judith Roberts, "Eraserhead"). And there's quite a bit of lovely country music to enjoy. (Gayle doesn't do her own singing, but lip synchs adequately.) Ultimately, it ends on a hopeful note, with Jamie determined to succeed on her own terms.The solid cast also includes familiar faces like screenwriter / actor Leo Gordon ("The Haunted Palace"), Jesse White ("Harvey"), and Marcie Barkin ("Fade to Black"). Gayle is radiant in the lead, and for those who are interested, she does strip down to her birthday suit for an early bout of skinny dipping.Entertaining stuff that, at an hour and 32 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome.Seven out of 10.

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 ****

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.

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".