{"id":141090,"date":"2018-11-18T10:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T15:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=141090"},"modified":"2022-04-12T09:20:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T13:20:56","slug":"my-talk-at-the-old-memphian-theatre-elvis-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=141090","title":{"rendered":"My talk at the old Memphian Theatre: Elvis in Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nWhen 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<\/i> was unbelievably special. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/a>\"\"<\/i> is essential reading. Written from the midst of Memphis, his home turf, It Came From Memphis<\/i> is an indepth three-dimensional portrait of Memphis’ cultural life, music, of course, but also art and painting and photography and wrestling. Instead of focusing on “the usual suspects,” like Stax or Sun or Elvis, you get to know Furry Lewis, Jim Dickinson, Alex Chilton, plus many more eccentric figures in Memphis’ cultural scene. I can’t recommend this book highly enough! Gordon is also the author of the definitive Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, and Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion<\/a>\"\"<\/i> (which I haven’t read, but I am so looking forward to it.) Gordon is also an award-winning film-maker, who has directed documentaries on Memphis subjects – B.B. King, William Eggleston, Big Star, to name a few. He also produced Best of Enemies<\/i>, the excellent recent documentary about the explosive televised debates of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. He also produced Very Extremely Dangerous<\/i>, a documentary about Memphis rock ‘n roll outlaw (literally) Jerry McGill, which had its premiere at Indie Memphis in 2012. Purely coincidental, Very Extremely Dangerous<\/i> was directed by my pal Paul Duane, whom I interviewed about another one of his films Barbaric Genius<\/i><\/a>. (The world is very small.)<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

Indie Memphis is a really special festival (my roundup here<\/a>), 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. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nA 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. <\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

Thanks to all who came out to the talk! To quote one of Elvis’ sexier songs<\/a>, “It means so much, so much.” <\/p>\n

Robert Gordon’s introduction<\/h1>\n

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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Memphis hated Elvis until he died. I remember the city then, 1977 \u2014 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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019d previously missed: There was money to make off that awful man. <\/p>\n

Tonight, I\u2019m 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\u2019s seat wind up on a Hollywood set singing a love song to a bull in Stay Away, Joe<\/em>? <\/p>\n

Elvis\u2019 Hollywood years are often considered his low point. But Sheila O\u2019Malley 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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019d been offered, starring across Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born<\/em>. Would Elvis still be alive if he\u2019d gotten a good role? That we can\u2019t know, but what we may yet learn is that as bad as many of Elvis\u2019s movies were, Elvis the actor had more talent than we ever realized. <\/p>\n

We are, right now, in Elvis\u2019s actor\u2019s studio. When this very room was the Memphian movie theater, he\u2019d 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\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s get to it. You may know Sheila O\u2019Malley 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\u2019s written for The New York Times, Film Comment<\/em> and the Criterion Collection. <\/p>\n

Alright then, a little less conversation, we\u2019re gonna love him tender. It didn\u2019t happen at the world\u2019s fair, it happened here at Indie Memphis: We\u2019re very proud to have, please welcome Sheila O\u2019Malley. <\/p>\n

Elvis in Hollywood<\/h1>\n

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.” <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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<\/em> 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<\/i>, but there are many more. <\/p>\n

But let’s focus on what DID happen as opposed to what DIDN’T happen. <\/p>\n

I see the movie career as having 4 separate phases. <\/p>\n

The first phase: Pre-Army: the 4 movies he made before he left for Germany in 1958 to do his military service. <\/p>\n

Hal Wallis, legendary producer, had seen Elvis in his first television appearance in early 1956, on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show<\/i>, 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. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a>
\nHal Wallis and Elvis Presley<\/i><\/p>\n

\nBecause 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<\/em>, a Western slash family melodrama. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nOne 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, \u201cPut that gun down!\u201d 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\u2019s boys of all time, obeyed her. He put the gun down.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in the whole thing he had heard me, and he believed me. Before, he\u2019d just been thinking what he was doing and how he was going to do it. I think it\u2019s a funny story. I also think it\u2019s a story about a beginner who had one of the essentials of acting, which is to believe.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mildred Dunnock knew what she was talking about.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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. <\/p>\n

\n