When Indie Memphis senior programmer Miriam Bale asked if I wanted to give a talk on Elvis during my time in Memphis, I was excited, but when I heard it was going to be in the Circuit, it felt almost unreal. The Circuit is a theatre in Memphis, now used for theatrical productions, but which was once a movie theatre – dating back to the 1920s – called The Memphian. I’ve visited it before, just a quick driveby, because it was a place Elvis loved. In the 60s and 70s, he’d rent it out for an entire night, so he and his posse could go and watch movies. They’d be there all night, with Elvis sitting down in front, same seat every time. The same movie would be played over and over, if Elvis loved it. The Memphian was a space of peace for Elvis, a place where he could relax in his hometown, where he felt safe. Being asked to give a talk on Elvis in that venue was unbelievably special.
The level of excitement increased when Miriam informed me that Robert Gordon would be introducing me, as well as moderating an audience QA afterwards. Robert Gordon is a Memphis-based award-winning author and filmmaker, whose book It Came From Memphis
This only scratches the surface of Gordon’s fascinating and rich career. I have admired him for a long time, so it was such a thrill to hear he would be introducing me. In the old Memphian no less!
Indie Memphis is a really special festival (my roundup here), jampacked with events and music and interesting people. It was a blast hanging out in Memphis for 5 days, meeting new people, reconnecting with the city, and – finally – gathering at the Circuit – once upon a time called the Memphian (neon sign inside the lobby) on a chilly Sunday night to talk about Elvis. Elvis and the movies.
A small crowd showed up at the Memphian that night, and I met a lot of nice people, a couple of whom have been reading my stuff on Elvis for years. That felt really good. Brad Jenkins, who ran the lights, and Joseph Carr, who would be manning the Elvis clips (I had forgot to bring my laptop, but Joseph made it work – thank you!) – were awesome, basically pulling things together – the podium, getting the mic hooked up, etc., arranging to have all the lights go out for each of the clips I played (projected on a screen on the side of the stage). It was all very exciting – so exciting that I had to remind myself a couple of times to actually ENJOY it. And I did. I’ll write later about the QA session afterwards, which was – like the rest of the night – really special, and went in a very interesting direction.
Here’s the talk I gave at Indie Memphis, and I thank Robert for giving me permission to print his beautiful introduction! (It gave me goosebumps just listening to him.)
Thanks to all who came out to the talk! To quote one of Elvis’ sexier songs, “It means so much, so much.”
Robert Gordon’s introduction
Tonight we will reassess Elvis Presley. Memphis has had a long and perplexed history with Elvis. While city fathers in Dixie days fancied themselves highly cultured and well educated, it was the poor white trash kid from Mississippi who tapped into the region’s subculture full of latent power. Cotton men wore pinstripes and their women wore chenille and they breathed stale air in their mansions, but Elvis felt the rumble of the power that drove the machine. He was a child of the streets, wrangling the muscle of hard work and the passion of hard play, the hope of the faithful and the abandon of the faithless. He captured an energy that, arguably, had a wider social impact than the toppling of the Bastille by the working people of Paris. The two are certainly related.
Memphis hated Elvis until he died. I remember the city then, 1977 — florists sold out of flowers, phone lines kept going down because of the international calls pouring in, and fans from around the world spontaneously descended, overflowing the hotels.
That was when the provincial men of cotton lucre took a new look at Elvis and at the African-American influenced rock and roll he created. They still hated him and it, but they saw what they’d previously missed: There was money to make off that awful man.
Tonight, I’m looking forward to another new look at Elvis. Tonight is about Elvis the actor. He made 31 movies during his 13 years in Hollywood. If it sounds like a factory, it pretty much was. How did the same guy who put the working man in the cultural driver’s seat wind up on a Hollywood set singing a love song to a bull in Stay Away, Joe?
Elvis’ Hollywood years are often considered his low point. But Sheila O’Malley has returned to the films unbothered by the years of denigration and has looked with fresh eyes at what many see only through layers of ridicule, shame, and embarrassment.
We all have alternative worlds of which we dream, like Gore beats Bush in the 2000 election. Another one of mine is Elvis accepting the role he’d been offered, starring across Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born. Would Elvis still be alive if he’d gotten a good role? That we can’t know, but what we may yet learn is that as bad as many of Elvis’s movies were, Elvis the actor had more talent than we ever realized.
We are, right now, in Elvis’s actor’s studio. When this very room was the Memphian movie theater, he’d regularly rent it during late night hours, his personal big screen where he could study the moves of his favorite actors. I think it won’t be hard to feel his presence in the room. If you see him at the concession stand, be nice and let him buy you a large popcorn.
Now, let’s get to it. You may know Sheila O’Malley from her popular and insightful blog, the Sheila Variations, or you may be among the many who follow her on twitter or at Roger Ebert.com. She’s written for The New York Times, Film Comment and the Criterion Collection.
Alright then, a little less conversation, we’re gonna love him tender. It didn’t happen at the world’s fair, it happened here at Indie Memphis: We’re very proud to have, please welcome Sheila O’Malley.
Elvis in Hollywood
Elvis’ career as an actor is ignored. Not just dismissed or mocked, but ignored. Between 1956 and 1969, Elvis Presley appeared in 31 feature films. They are extremely strange films. They make no sense without Elvis. They barely make sense WITH Elvis. They aren’t referred to as “movies.” They’re referred to as “Elvis movies.”
Film critics ignored his movies and ignore them still. Music critics are angry that the whole thing happened at all. They hate the movies, they resent that Elvis even wanted to be an actor, they hate the soundtracks, they hate that Elvis stopped touring for almost a decade – especially since Elvis’ movie career coincided with the British Invasion, so Elvis – who had inspired so many of these British bands – sat on the sidelines, playing a ukelele on the drive-in screens throughout the land, watching as he was left behind. Music critics are not WRONG in their feeling of how much Elvis’ movie career damaged his status in the music world – it still damages his status.
Because these movies are ignored – except by the fans, of course – they exist in a weird never-never-land. It’s assumed that all the movies are bad. Roger Ebert said Elvis never made a good movie. Now I love Roger, and I’m grateful to him for giving me a job, but this is just not true. In almost no rubric you can come up with is King Creole a bad movie. But there are many good movies in this bizarre pantheon – and he’s always good. He’s even good in the dumb movies – maybe even particularly in the dumb movies, because, my God, what other actor could survive such silliness? He’s charming and funny and he singlehandedly justifies these movies’ existence. Elvis brought to the screen an understanding of his unique persona. He never took himself too seriously. This is a HUGE plus, and WAY easier said than done. He was very open about how unhappy he was about his movie career – how he wished he had been allowed to make better movies. There are many missed opportunities and many What Ifs, the most famous being A Star is Born, but there are many more.
But let’s focus on what DID happen as opposed to what DIDN’T happen.
I see the movie career as having 4 separate phases.
The first phase: Pre-Army: the 4 movies he made before he left for Germany in 1958 to do his military service.
Hal Wallis, legendary producer, had seen Elvis in his first television appearance in early 1956, on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show, and before the performance was even over, Hal Wallis was making plans to have the kid come out for a screen test. Elvis signed with Hal Wallis.
Hal Wallis and Elvis Presley
Because Elvis had no acting experience, Wallis wanted to ease Elvis into the movies, and so the first movie Elvis was put in was an ensemble drama, where he played a secondary role, surrounded by experienced actors. Elvis wouldn’t have the burden of having to carry the film. This was Love Me Tender, a Western slash family melodrama.
One of my favorite anecdotes about Elvis as an actor comes from the Oscar-nominated stage and screen veteran Mildred Dunnock, who played Elvis’ mother in the film. Elvis had no experience. He was totally green. In one scene, Elvis’ character grabs a gun and charges for the door. His mother cries out, “Put that gun down!” and he’s supposed to ignore her and race out the door. On the first take, when Dunnock said her line, Elvis, one of the most famous mamma’s boys of all time, obeyed her. He put the gun down.
This anecdote has been told in a mocking way about Elvis’ lack of experience, or in a kind of “Poor Mildred Dunnock having to work with this AMATEUR” way. But let’s listen to what Dunnock had to say about it.
“For the first time in the whole thing he had heard me, and he believed me. Before, he’d just been thinking what he was doing and how he was going to do it. I think it’s a funny story. I also think it’s a story about a beginner who had one of the essentials of acting, which is to believe.”
Mildred Dunnock knew what she was talking about.
Elvis was naive. He didn’t want to sing in his movies, and believed he wouldn’t have to sing. He was a huge admirer of James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando. He wanted to make movies like that. But of course, the studio made him sing. Love Me Tender has 4 songs in it, including the famous title track. The songs have a kind of hoe-down-y Hollywood-hillbilly sound – corny, for sure. His movements are anachronistic but it doesn’t matter at all. He performs these songs without self-consciousness or embarrassment, even more amazing when you remember that he did not want to sing in the movies, he was embarrassed by it, he was disappointed. None of that shows in the end result. What you see, instead, is how he brings to the table joy in what he is doing, joy he is happy to share. He has a kind of easiness that lets you know he’s in on the joke.
The next three movies in this first phase attempt to DEAL with the phenomenon of Elvis’ fame, which was so huge at that point it was barely fame anymore, it was something else. Nobody had been that famous before. Love Me Tender was a traditional movie in a recognized genre, Elvis fitting into a story set up long before he came along. The next three movies are all versions of Elvis’ story, different “takes” on his rags-to-riches overnight story. A couple of these films use well-known events from Elvis’ actual life as plot points, things the public would recognize. Elvis’ movies got Meta, almost instantly. Loving You, the first of the bunch, is about a delivery guy who sings at a county fair and is discovered by a big-time manager – played by the great Lizabeth Scott – who looks at him and sees twirling dollar signs.
Elvis Presley and Lizabeth Scott, “Loving You”
Loving You is basically Elvis-Lite – a Hollywood version of the pandemonium he caused – but still, you can feel the movie struggling to get a handle on the cultural phenomenon. It was like trying to control a wild animal.
Jailhouse Rock came next, and Jailhouse Rock is interesting because he plays a jerk. The character is a jerk at the start and he’s a jerk at the end, only now he’s a rich jerk. He’s super sexy in it, and his hair was never taller.
Judy Tyler and Elvis Presley
The jerkiness of the character is such a bizarre choice – he’s not even a sympathetic jerk – but you can tell they were trying to loop Elvis into the “bad boy” rebel without a cause juvenile delinquent thing, so dominant in 1950s culture. Meanwhile, Elvis was a guy who drank milkshakes and loved his mother. And so this is important to keep in mind, and it is almost never mentioned: what he does in Jailhouse Rock is an acting performance, because if there’s one thing Elvis was known for personally – it was his politeness. His good boy Southern politeness. His Yes Ma’am, No sir, manners were compulsive. But here in Jailhouse Rock, he plays an ex-con who tramples over anyone who gets in the way of his music career, including those who helped him get started. Elvis doesn’t push, or overplay. At all times, he’s slightly irritated, arrogant, casually cruel, and he makes it feels organic, like he’s letting us in on a secret, of just what his politeness might cover up. It’s brave to play such an unsympathetic character so believably. In one scene, his record label promoter, played by Judy Tyler, takes him to a party where snooty people talk about jazz. It’s one of my favorite Elvis scenes.
King Creole is the best movie Elvis made. This one is on the radar of film critics, because the director was Michael Curtiz, who directed a number of classics, the main one being Casablanca, but he also directed The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce, it’s a long list. Curtiz was the best director Elvis ever worked with, and in King Creole he’s surrounded by a cast of really good actors – Walter Matthau, Carolyn Jones, Dolores Hart, Paul Stewart, Vic Morrow. Everyone is amazing in it, including Elvis.
Why King Creole is important, though, is it shows what Elvis’ career might have looked like if directors had treated him like a major star, as opposed to a novelty act (or, worse, a joke). Curtiz took a lot of care in how he framed Elvis. He filmed Elvis like he was Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Joan Crawford, he had fun with shadows and light on the face, he was fascinated by Elvis’ look, and found a lot of diversity in how he filmed him. This would not be true in the later films in the 60s. These films take Elvis’ presence and star quality for granted. King Creole is also filled with good songs, many of which were written by eventual rock ‘n roll Hall of Famers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Here he sings “New Orleans”, accompanied by his regular backup group The Jordannaires. And watch how Curtiz has created a powerful mood for Elvis to just go up there and be Elvis, with his huge shadow behind him.
Presley left for Germany to do his military service after King Creole. He was gone for 2 years. No recording, no movies.
The second phase of his movie career comes when he returns to the States. There’s a flailing around feeling in the 3 films he did upon his return – G.I. Blues, which capitalized on his military experience – and two others – Flaming Star and Wild in the Country – nearly unknown today but they’re two of his best. Flaming Star was directed by Don Siegel of Dirty Harry fame, and had no songs except the title track. Elvis is fantastic in it. He gives a real performance.
Elvis in “Flaming Star”
Wild in the Country was written by none other than Clifford Odets, and is basically Good Will Hunting, the Elvis version – where Elvis plays a hothead juvenile delinquent who is court ordered to get some therapy. Through therapy he deals with his pain and alienation, the loss of his mother. Wild in the Country has a great trio of female co-stars: Hope Lange, Millie Perkins, and an explosive Tuesday Weld. He’s so good in Flaming Star and Wild in the Country but they didn’t make any money. Nobody wanted to see Elvis give a real performance in a real story, where he didn’t sing. The powers that be – Hal Wallis and his controversial manager Colonel Tom Parker – along with the studio – weren’t eager to repeat them. This is yet another What If in his career.
Then along came the juggernaut that was Blue Hawaii in 1961, ushering in Phase 3 – the Elvis Formula Movie.
When people say “Elvis movies” this is the section they’re talking about. The desire to recreate the success of Blue Hawaii led to the Formula, repeated in endless variation for the next 7 years. Elvis experienced this as a prison sentence. It was a vice of success. Norman Taurog directed Blue Hawaii, and became the go-to guy for Elvis Movies after that. He ended up directing 9 of them in total.
The Elvis formula is as follows:
1. It takes place in an “exotic” location, like Hawaii or Las Vegas or Acapulco.
2. Elvis plays a singer moonlighting as a race car driver or vice versa, because that’s a valid normal job for a person to have.
3. The “triangulation” of Elvis by numerous babes. It was never a one-on-one love story. There were usually three women vying for him.
Or, as in this clip from Blue Hawaii, five women.
Elvis is never the sexual aggressor in the Elvis Formula Movies. He is chased around by women in bikinis and in the end he has to choose. Or – as in the final scene in Spinout in 1966 – which has to be seen to be believed – he kisses each of the 3 candidates, all of whom are in wedding gowns, and then looks right in the camera and says, “I’m still single.”
If you watch these movies alone at home, you may feel like you’re having an out of body experience. Or like someone has spiked your drink. But my theory is: these movies were made to be played at a drive-in on a hot summer night. With someone losing their virginity in the car next door, and people getting drunk two cars down. If you imagine seeing them in that setting, they make perfect sense. The colors are bright, everyone is good-looking, nobody has a real job, the world is one long beach party … there’s no real sex in it, no real problems, there’s a song every 15 minutes, and Elvis is in every scene, every frame. These movies are unique cultural documents. They cannot be compared to anything else. They also generated a RIVER of money.
One other factor which I’ll touch on briefly: The 1960s saw the complete collapse of the old Hollywood studio system. Derailed by ballooning expenses, and also competing with television – and losing – the studios slowly began to implode, leaving a vacuum. That process had already started when Elvis signed with Hal Wallis in 1956, but by the early 60s, the writing was on the wall. Elvis was one of the last stars of the formal studio system, one of the last stars to be locked into a multi-year contract like that, one of the last stars who worked solely within the studio system. Elvis came from the 50s and 60s, but his contract was like Bette Davis’ contract, James Cagney’s contract, contracts which actors back THEN had found oppressive. By the time Elvis came around, his kind of career was already almost obsolete. He was a young man working in an old system. By the end of the 1960s, the independent film scene was starting to emerge – John Cassavetes’ Faces came in 1968 – and there was Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy and others – freedom was starting to be a possibility. So: as the studios collapsed, as the certainties of that old system vanished, one of the only sure things still left in town was an Elvis Movie. It’s an important part of the context of his career. Elvis wanted to get better material. But in such a precarious financial environment, there was no WAY Elvis was going to be allowed to deviate from the formula that sold tickets. Elvis felt trapped. He WAS trapped.
Of all the formula movies, Viva Las Vegas stands out. It’s different.
The director, George Sidney, had made a name for himself directing musicals: Showboat, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate, so he brought another kind of sensibility to the table. The musical numbers are really NUMBERS here. But the main reason Viva Las Vegas stands out is Elvis was paired up with a rising star who matched him in fire and sex appeal – Ann-Margret. In Viva Las Vegas, she has a couple of her own solo numbers too – with Elvis not even onscreen. The Colonel HATED this. He was very very annoyed at Viva Las Vegas, he didn’t care that the chemistry between the two stars was so insane you can still feel it today, over 50 years later. When Elvis had to WORK for one woman’s attention, as he has to do in Viva Las Vegas, he was activated in a very sexy way. Elvis was thrilled to work with someone who matched him in energy. He couldn’t coast with her. She’d steal the whole thing from him otherwise. They are amazing onscreen together.
Steven Spielberg has called Viva Las Vegas one of his favorite movies. You should listen to Spielberg.
Here’s just one of the many numbers Elvis and Ann-Margret do together. Look for Teri Garr. She’s one of the background dancers.
Now we come to the fourth and final phase – the end of the 60s, when the Elvis Formula breaks apart. Elvis was now 31, 32 years old, a married man with a daughter. Once the formula disappears, the movies get wilder. Unfortunately, by that point, nobody was paying attention anymore. These movies came and went without a trace. But they are well worth seeking out.
Stay Away Joe is a raucous free-for-all. It has no point but it’s fun, and it places Elvis in the middle of a rambunctious ensemble, one of many. Speedway costars Nancy Sinatra – and is a huge influence on Quentin Tarantino. Charro is a Spaghetti Western takeoff, with Elvis riding around in chaps and roping horses. In The Trouble With Girls, which I love, he’s not even the lead! Once the formula vanishes, he’s in a totally relaxed and loose space. He gets to behave, to ACT, even. I really must call out one in particular – Live a Little Love a Little – directed by Taurog again – a screwball comedy heavily influenced by Bringing Up Baby. This movie is almost totally unknown but it’s one of my favorite Elvis movies. He plays a fashion photographer chased around by a kooky woman who wants him BAD – played by Michele Carey.
What makes this performance unique in his career is that he is allowed to be cranky about a woman chasing him around. This is like Cary Grant in Breaking Up Baby. His crankiness is what makes the performance so funny. In Live a Little Love a Little he is allowed to have FEELINGS about being catnip for the ladies. It’s human. In the Elvis Formula Movies, Elvis was rarely allowed the opportunity to play anything remotely human. In Live a Little, he runs up and down staircases, he hides behind newspapers in crowded elevators, he shouts in people’s faces, he is embarrassed and irritable. And FUNNY.
There are only a couple of songs in Live a Little, and one of them would become an enormous hit for him – one that still gets radio play, “A Little Less Conversation”. Elvis goes to a party at what is obviously supposed to be the Playboy mansion, sees a woman, and basically demands she come home with him. The Elvis Formula movies were pretty coy about sex – one of the weird quirks of 1960s American cinema in general – and there’s more sexual energy in this number than in all the Elvis Formula Movies put together.
One of the things Elvis brought to all of his roles was a sense of ease and openness before the camera. Mildred Dunnock saw it in 1956. The camera picks up honesty, and Elvis never lied. This was true in King Creole and it was true in Girls! Girls! Girls!. You try to act in a movie like Girl Happy and not look idiotic. As unhappy as Elvis was making many of these movies, you never get the sense that he was slumming.
Kurt Russell said, “I love Elvis movies because Elvis is in them.”
There aren’t too many actors you can say that about.
Loved it!
??
Thanks for coming out! Great to meet you!
I feel like I just took a survey course, in the best way possible – thanks for sharing this! One of the things I always appreciate about your writing is how you discuss how hard it is to be good at acting and filmmaking. That Dunnock anecdote is absolutely fantastic. And thanks for including Gordon’s introduction, it’s a great piece of writing. What a wonderful experience that must have been, in that theatre in particular. Looking forward to hearing about the Q&A!
On a shallow note, I am wildly into that picture of Elvis in Flaming Star.
Jessie – thank you!
// One of the things I always appreciate about your writing is how you discuss how hard it is to be good at acting and filmmaking. //
This means a lot!
Mildred Dunnock saw it – she got it – he was LISTENING. Nothing can happen without listening!! Love that story so much.
The whole night was so great – and yes, I’ll do a thing on the QA too. Melanie started us off with a question. Actually, it was Robert – who called her out – saying “I think Melissa has a question?” because of a conversation before the talk – which I thought was
1. very charming and
2. impressive. He may have got the name wrong, but good memory!!
Side note: what a relief to not have to run my own QA. I’ve run QAs for others and there is a skill to it. I was very glad to have him handle it.
and yes, his intro!! I sat there listening to him thinking, “Is this really happening?”
Oh, and to anyone who is a fan of Big Star – cue our friend Helena!! – Gordon’s book It Came From Memphis has an entire section on Chilton and Big Star, which is fascinating.
Flaming Star Elvis = Rowr.
I was sitting here listening to “His Hand In Mine” on vinyl and reading your presentation. Weird symmetry — since it’s also a given by too many that his gospel albums are throwaways like the movies. Anybody who says Elvis was primarily a singles artist should listen more closely to the gospel albums. Anyway, I felt like I was there with you. So happy for you. And Robert Gordon: Another career high for you!
Larry! You’ve been such a support of my Elvis stuff over the years – thank you for getting what a big deal this was!
It was such a fun night – with some smart Elvis people there. Good questions!
// Anybody who says Elvis was primarily a singles artist should listen more closely to the gospel albums. //
This is really true.
Lots of blind spots out there about Elvis. “Oh, it’s not the kind of thing I personally am into, therefore it can’t have much value.” It’s so tiresome.
So true about Elvis in “Jailhouse Rock”, he was unforgivable, but we his fans loved him anyway. Great insights, thank you.
You’re welcome – thanks for reading!
A pleasure, Sheila.
Sheila, I read this last night and watched all of the clips, and I only wish I could’ve been there to cheer and cry a little and throw flowers at you like the superstar Elvis Queen you are. Between this and your other piece on Elvis movies, I’m totally convinced of Elvis the actor. I love that clip from Jailhouse Rock… I’ve read you quoting that “beast” bit before, but seeing the clip… ooof! I get why it’s one of your faves. What a line and what a delivery!! And of course with Ann Margaret… daaaymmn! Those two were so HOTT together, are STILL on fire.
Some of my favourite parts:
/Elvis had no experience. He was totally green. In one scene, Elvis’ character grabs a gun and charges for the door. His mother cries out, “Put that gun down!” and he’s supposed to ignore her and race out the door. On the first take, when Dunnock said her line, Elvis, one of the most famous mamma’s boys of all time, obeyed her. He put the gun down.
This anecdote has been told in a mocking way about Elvis’ lack of experience, or in a kind of “Poor Mildred Dunnock having to work with this AMATEUR” way. But let’s listen to what Dunnock had to say about it.
“For the first time in the whole thing he had heard me, and he believed me. Before, he’d just been thinking what he was doing and how he was going to do it. I think it’s a funny story. I also think it’s a story about a beginner who had one of the essentials of acting, which is to believe.”
Mildred Dunnock knew what she was talking about./
-Every detail of this is so sweet and intelligent. This is a great anecdote about Elvis and his mama’s boy-ness (so sweet I tear up a bit), but even more so about acting. If I were teaching an acting class I would use this in my first class because that little story says so much with (seemingly) so little. It illustrates an essential part of what is means to act.
/Elvis is never the sexual aggressor in the Elvis Formula Movies. He is chased around by women in bikinis and in the end he has to choose. Or – as in the final scene in Spinout in 1966 – which has to be seen to be believed – he kisses each of the 3 candidates, all of whom are in wedding gowns, and then looks right in the camera and says, “I’m still single.” [HUH?!]
If you watch these movies alone at home, you may feel like you’re having an out of body experience [Yep]. Or like someone has spiked your drink [Double yep]. But my theory is: these movies were made to be played at a drive-in on a hot summer night. With someone losing their virginity in the car next door, and people getting drunk two cars down. If you imagine seeing them in that setting, they make perfect sense. The colors are bright, everyone is good-looking, nobody has a real job, the world is one long beach party … there’s no real sex in it, no real problems, there’s a song every 15 minutes, and Elvis is in every scene, every frame. These movies are unique cultural documents. They cannot be compared to anything else. They also generated a RIVER of money./
-This bit had me laughing out loud last night and I’m in the library right now and I can’t stop laughing. I don’t know how it sounded when you read it, but the way you wrote it only adds to how patently dense the whole scenario is. Was the audience laughing? I mean, I’m watching clips on youtube now… this is so stupid and perfect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-86DtHMFz0 . And the trailer itself is priceless. Completely bonkers and every bit says “ELVIS racing!”, “ELVIS romancing!”. “ELVIS doing anything!”. ELVIS, PEOPLE! Yeah, I get it and I can’t stop laughing. “He’s even good in the dumb movies – maybe even particularly in the dumb movies, because, my God, what other actor could survive such silliness? He’s charming and funny and he singlehandedly justifies these movies’ existence.” Bingo!
And one last one from Robert Gordon: /How did the same guy who put the working man in the cultural driver’s seat wind up on a Hollywood set singing a love song to a bull in Stay Away, Joe?/ Good question, Robert! To a bull?! I mean, why not. He’s already romanced all the loony, Peanuts-like dancing girls all around him, so why not a bull? Makes sense to me!
It’s all about the persona, the individual magic, that instinctual genius that he had. In the end all these movies seem to really be about Elvis, he was the vehicle, the raison d’etre for all of it.
I’ve been reading you for many years and this, in my humble opinion, is one of your great career (and life?) highlights. I mean ELVIS + acting + Memphis + THEE Memphian + Gordon intro = SHEILA IN HEAVEN?! The only thing that could’ve topped all of that is Elvis walking in and handing you flowers. Or popcorn. I mean, what else? A big deal. What’s with the O’Malley’s? You guys should have a band or a series or a baseball team called The MAJOR O’MALLEY’S.
Brooke – hahahaha I love your comment. “ELVIS, PEOPLE.” and the trailer of Spinout – like, WHAT? Has the world gone MAD? No, it’s just ELVIS.
You can’t make this shit up – and as stupid as so much of it is, it deserves to be discussed! I love how Robert Gordon called me “unbothered.” hahaha I really am!
// If I were teaching an acting class I would use this in my first class because that little story says so much with (seemingly) so little. //
I know, right? I almost couldn’t believe it when I first tripped over that anecdote – I think it was in Peter Guralnick’s biography. It’s just so generous – first of all – but it’s also true. Many actors never would “put the gun down” because they don’t know how to listen!
// I’ve been reading you for many years and this, in my humble opinion, is one of your great career (and life?) highlights. //
This is very touching of you to say – and I truly appreciate it.
It definitely is a highlight. It’s so bizarre I couldn’t have even dreamt it up. Sure, maybe giving a lecture on Elvis – maybe curating a little Elvis film festival (which I still would love to do) – but to do it onstage at The Memphian … that’s just CRAZY TALK.
It was super fun. Thank you for taking this silly Elvis ride with me!
// This bit had me laughing out loud last night and I’m in the library right now and I can’t stop laughing. I don’t know how it sounded when you read it, but the way you wrote it only adds to how patently dense the whole scenario is. Was the audience laughing? //
hahahaha People were laughing throughout! I was so glad they got into the spirit of what I was doing. It wasn’t a solemn event at all – maybe this is one of the things I can bring to this arena. I’m a FAN, not a scholar – although I know everything. (at least about this). So I would set up each clip – and then as the clip started to play, people started laughing – because I had set it up. Not laughing AT Elvis, but laughing in pure enjoyment. Which was just so special – if I think about it in any indepth way – playing those clips and appreciating him IN THE MEMPHIAN – my head wants to explode.
I really need to write about the QA, and about the guy down in front especially – because he was very connected to what I was doing.
People are protective of Elvis. They’re on the defensive. But I coming from a place of enthusiasm, which seems to set other people free too. Maybe it’s because – as I have said so many times – I don’t believe in “guilty pleasures.” If something gives you pleasure – and it’s not illegal – or it’s not harming animals – then my God, guilt should not come into it. I feel so strongly about this!!
Anyway, thank you so much for reading – for being there – for everything. I truly appreciate it!
I know those out-of-body experiences are precious and few. I’m so glad you got to experience it and to share it with us. Happy Thanksgiving Sheila!
You too!
Due to life being uncooperative I’m in catch-up mode this week and have only just read your take on Elvis in the movies. Just two specific comments – (i) agree with all that you say and (ii) it is good to hear it said – it was/is annoying to hear people knock the movies with easy swipes rather than with factual or considered opinion-based comments.
On a personal level, growing up in the UK the movies meant we felt a little less isolated from the Elvis world. I enjoyed many of Elvis’s movies – still do – and found a few a little embarrassing – still do – but the one constant is that Elvis always does a professional job … and, as you point out, sometimes a masterful one.
One film that didn’t get a specific comment is “Follow That Dream”, a gentle comedy sensitively acted by our man; nothing earth-shattering, just good fun and very entertaining. I love the opening sequence (backed by what, I was once told with some authority, was originally meant to be the title song – the superb “What a Wonderful Life”) where Elvis immediately and naturally draws you into his character with each look and shrug as he has to pull over so the two kids can take a toilet break.
Finally, I enjoy your blog, intimidating though it can be – it constantly astonishes me how can one person have the intellectual energy and vibrancy to see, hear, read, have opinions on so much. But thank goodness you do.
With a cheery wave from Tony.
Tony – this is such a nice comment, I so appreciate it!!
You know, it’s funny about Follow That Dream – I love that movie too but due to time constraints I didn’t mention it – there were a couple of others I wanted to get into too – but I only had about 35, 40 minutes. But a couple of people have mentioned the absence of Follow That Dream over on Facebook – which I just think is great!! It makes me wish I had included it, but still, it’s good to know how much love there is out there for the movie.
I love the opening sequence too – and I love the character he plays. Which really isn’t anything like Elvis – it’s another actual acting job from him, which nobody ever really mentions! Elvis had a very sharp sense of irony and humor – he got subtleties of humor – and that character, of course, is meant to be simple – not slow, but very literal. An “innocent.” I thought he was great in it! And good songs too!
Again, many thanks!
As Dennis Hopper said about “Waterworld”, “It’s just as hard to make a bad movie as it is to make a good one.”
Elvis is always spectacular.
I love this. Yes.
I have always enjoyed your astute analysis of Elvis’ movie output, and your sympathetic treatment of his creative legacy, in general. Like many Elvis ‘heads’, including myself, you have an encyclopedic knowledge of your subject. There is something quite serendipitous about your talent as a writer bringing you to ‘The Memphian’, of all places. Who else, but you, was/is best placed to do so? I believe we manifest these moments of serendipity, in thought and deed. I have enjoyed a few such’Elvis’ moments through my own endeavours and can relate to your sense of excitement. Thanks for sharing your experience here. I hope you continue to manifest many more similar experiences – Elvis-related and otherwise.
Thank you so much, Noel! It means a lot!
This was one of the greatest moments of my career thus far. Robert Gordon! So yes, hopefully more to come.