Roustabout (1964, John Rich)

About a third into Elvis's carnie flick, Roustabout, his Charlie Rogers enters the tent of fortune teller Madame Mijanou who claims she look into his eyes and palm and they will "reveal much about love."  One needs not be a seer to read into the life of Presley at this point in his film career.  His eyes look a little glazed for much of the film, and though often unnaturally tan and made up, his face looks particularly puffy throughout the feature.  Roustabout was Elvis's third film of 1964, and his strenuous schedule under the direction of Colonel Tom Parker led him to a regimen of prescription uppers and downers.

The film doesn't suffer for it (nor did the surprising success of the soundtrack-- one of five Presley albums to rank as a top 100 best selling album of the 1960s), but for the first time in Elvis's movies, we can see that Presley clearly did.  Some sources claim he was on diet pills since he used to steal him from his mother and, although he didn't put on the weight that he carried by the time Paradise, Hawaiian Style came in 1966, in Roustabout he begins to look worse for wear.

He even slurs some, which is difficult to decipher whether this was Presley's idea of characterization or side effect.  His character, however, is one of his most likable ones in the oeuvre, and the difference is subtle.  Yes, he still is a bit of a womanizer.  Yes, he still makes his career singing in nightclubs (and now, circuses).  Yes, he even gets in trouble early, brawling it out in the parking lot (showcasing a bit of his real-life karate training, though it looks pretty funny).  The difference is, where earlier Presley films draw him untouchable (Girls! Girls! Girls!) or worse, entitled (It Happened At The World's Fair), Charlie Rogers has a bite that isn't excused.

In the opening scene of the film, Charlie takes the stage at the teahouse he works for and is immediately heckled by a table of college students.  Elvis trades verbal blows before grabbing his guitar and performing "Poison Ivy League" only to be incitive.  A bit of rebel is back, and enough shines through the mostly cliché screenplay to make it enduring.  He even adds a provocative pause as he serenades his rivals calling them "sons of... riches", adding just enough edge to make the characterization work.  So even when it's apparent that producer Hal Wallis gave specific instruction to "[keep] the screenplays shallow,"  the darker undercurrent and strong cast allow an emotional resonance to flourish.

Barbara Stanwyck plays carnival owner Maggie Morgan who, while traveling with her employees Joe Lean (Leif Erickson) and his daughter Cathy (Joan Freeman), runs Charlie and his motorcycle off the road.  Charlie, though not specified as an orphan, is something of a nihilist with no ties.  He joins the carnival while his bike is repaired, and we are introduced to a deep web of melancholy loyalties.  "Everybody needs someone to worry about," Charlie is told as he is introduced to the carnival, and it is a trite moral of the film that is drawn more three-dimensionally than you would expect from an Elvis musical-comedy vehicle. 

The scenes between Presley and Stanwyck are the highlight, and the hard-edged mother-figure teaches Charlie that he must start "living from the waist up"-- advice that provides character development in a way that sounds trite, but works.  Joe Lean leads a tormented life of regrets (one that makes Presley's character in Fun In Acapulco seem abhorrently amateurish), and his relationship with Stanwyck's Maggie is something of real substance.  Strangely, the weakest screen chemistry is between Charlie and his love interest, Cathy.

Upon its release, Roustabout gathered the reputation of being the weakest set of songs for an Elvis picture yet which is flat out untrue.  Nevermind that it was his third highest-selling soundtrack behind powerhouses Blue Hawaii and G.I. Blues, I actually prefer Roustabout to his other musical-comedy full-lengths.  The soundtrack features two excellent and nearly forgotten tracks that rank among the best in any Elvis film.  "Big Love, Big Heartache" is a melancholy doo-wop-tinged should-be pop hit in a similar vein as The Cascades' "Rhythm of the Rain".  Another forgotten gem is "One Track Heart" which ranks among "Crawfish", "Flaming Star" and "Tiger Man" as, though sub-radar, my favorite Elvis songs, bar none. 

Around the time Wallis produced Roustabout he told a journalist, "to do the artistic pictures, it is necessary to do the commercially successful Presley pictures."  Presley was none to happy that his musical-comedy doldrums were bankrolling Wallis's shot at Oscar.  It appears that Presley was promised, at least by word of mouth, that he could star in Becket, an historical drama Wallis would also release in 1964 that would win a screenwriting Oscar for Edward Anhalt (Girls! Girls! Girls!).  Wallis built his own bridges and burned them just as fast.  Director John Rich even grew tired of Wallis's fiscally-minded operations and, despite not seeing eye to eye with Elvis during Roustabout, grew to respect his work by the time the two worked together again on Easy Come, Easy Go (a film that would become the last Presley picture produced by Wallis, as the well finally dried up). 

So perhaps that Presley snarl comes with a bit of precedent.  Roustabout is better for it. -- ***/four stars


Back to The Films of Elvis Presley

Click Here, Nimrods...

Summary only...

Viva Las Vegas (1964, George Sidney)

Viva Las Vegas has a real virility lacking in the past several Elvis films.  It is rightfully one of his best remembered pictures, both in soundtrack and film.  This is due, in part, to the distance between it and the typical formula:  unique to Viva Las Vegas, Elvis's rival is also his love interest.  The chemistry between Elvis and Ann-Margret is rambunctious and believable.  And although the film resorts (as they all do) with the appeal of Elvis being too much for the female to resist, this time it goes both ways.

The real interesting elements of Viva Las Vegas involve the film fleshing out one of the most complete female characters in the Elvis oeuvre-- one that can hold her own scenes and musical numbers with Elvis no where in sight-- while at the same time increasing the deification of Elvis as a singular, unstoppable force.  If films like Kid Galahad lightened the need of narrative consequence and replaced it with pap, Viva Las Vegas draws the whirlwind surrounding the Elvis character so cartoonish that any other human beings are merely means to an end.  The film ends with an auto race across the Nevada desert in which cars are being run off the road and bursting into flames with no gravity as to what that actually means.  Elvis is larger than life, and the film is one of the few Elvis pictures with enough charisma to make it work.
 
Elvis plays Lucky Jackson, a racecar driver who shows up in Las Vegas for a Grand Prix who would be a shoo-in, if only his car had an engine.  He is forced to take a part-time position as a casino waiter (a job that doesn't pay him for, yet doesn't seem to mind, his performance singing on the side) while on the hunt for his mystery girl (the beautiful Ann-Margret as Rusty Martin) that escaped him without leaving name or number.  Lucky pursues the mystery woman and they bout it out in a few musical numbers.

Despite the turmoil in the competitive nature of their relationship, there is a real female empowerment that most all Elvis films lack.  Rusty stands toe-to-toe in a musical competition and brings it to a draw.  Lucky understands that he can't best his love interest, and even when his crew is scrambling to get his car ready in time for the big race, Rusty is there, clad in coveralls, supporting the team in an egalitarian rather than subjective role.  It comes full circle when Lucky, after winning the big race, redeems his earlier prize of a two-week honeymoon: not as consolation to Rusty, but as a mutually beneficial partnership.

Viva Las Vegas stands head and shoulders above much of Elvis's output and it's not only a matter of production value, although it helps a great deal.  Following a string of quickies that scraped lower and lower the barrel in quality as well as budget (Girls! Girls! Girls!, Fun In Acapulco, Kissin' Cousins), Viva Las Vegas committed the cardinal sin in the eyes of moneyman Colonel Tom Parker: it took longer than expected, went over budget and (gasp!) cut into Elvis and the Colonel's take.  Nevermind that it became Elvis's highest grossing movie ever, Parker refused to rely on intangibles and paint-by-number slapdash and guaranteed checks would be protocol from here on out.  Though released earler, Kissin' Cousins was actually shot primarily after Viva Las Vegas as to recoup any damage that might have incurred.  Producer Hal Wallis was serious when he said "an Elvis picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood," but Parker would rather cash the easy check and call it a day, thankyouverymuch.

Though more sugar than substance, Viva Las Vegas (the only Elvis picture veteran musical director George Sidney ever touched) does have it directorial moments.  Take the performance of the title track:  a two-and-a-half minute cabaret performance in one-shot that, while minimal in its formal and literal choreography, is commendable for not drawing attention to itself.  It is a nice touch unthinkable from the likes of Gene Nelson (who despite a highly successful dancing career, couldn't point a camera to save his life) or Richard Thorpe, and a subtle difference that ripples, widening the gap between the value of films in Presley's career which, even at their best, could be accurately describes as pap.

Unfortunately, this quality was not something valued by its filmmakers.  Viva Las Vegas made money, great.  So, how can we capture lightning in the bottle a second time, but cheaper?  Wallis and Parker have every instinct for the bottom line with no barometer for merit.  The lesson learned from Viva Las Vegas was not that the market for Elvis is highest when the caliber of songs is at its highest and a believable chemistry is aided by a fantastic lead female, rather Elvis looks cool in a car race (and while we're on the cheap (Speedway, Spinout), we can green screen it).  But for what it's worth, Viva Las Vegas in not only a quality film, but a fair and uninsulting one.  While that doesn't seem like it should be too much to ask, the returns diminish from here on out. -- ***/four stars


Back to The Films of Elvis Presley

Click Here, Nimrods...

Summary only...

Kissin' Cousins (1964, Gene Nelson)

By far the worst to helm Presley pictures, veteran sitcom director Gene Nelson is responsible of two of the three worst Elvis movies.  Both rely heavily on stereotype for characterization and "otherness" for laughs-- Kissin' Cousins and Harum Scarum both attempt indulgent superiority.  Where Nelson (who also wrote the screenplay to Kissin' Cousins) has the chops to look down his nose at anyone is beyond me, as his directorial output consists mainly of things like "The Mod Squad" and "Fantasy Island".  

In what appears to be a limited double-feature of Fun In Acapulco and Girls! Girls! Girls!, a poster claiming "Twice As Much Elvis As Ever!" must have really got the wheels turning in the heads of the creative geniuses behind Film Elvis.  A not so subtle inbreeding joke pairs two Elvis's on the screen in Kissin' Cousins.  Elvis #1 is Josh Morgan, an Air Force officer whose backwoods heritage gets him selected to return to Hillbilly, Tennessee to talk distant kin into giving up their land for a missile base.  Elvis #2 is the blond Jodie Tatum, the contentious wrestling champion of the Smoky Mountains who doesn't take too kindly to strangers.

Neither do the innumerable (and indistinguishable) Kittyhawks-- the lusty mountain women who fire shotguns at trespassers.  That is, until the girls realize the intruders are men.  At this point they become unhinged and attack Josh and every soldier in the platoon as they are desperate for sex.

You can see where this is going real fast.  Two Elvises means he can kiss that many more females.  The local color only care about shacking up, hootenannies and moonshine.  Elvis #1 hooks up with a distant hillbilly cousin, Elvis #2 hooks up with a female Corporal-- even the government hooks up with the hillbillies, agreeing to split the mountain as long as the moonshine industry is untouched.  Gonzo patriotism marries bumpkin libertarianism, but what seems screwball framework produces less laughs than my mom's eighth-grade limerick about a plane being hijacked to Cuba.

The film was produced on the smallest budget for an Elvis film to date, and it shows.  Though the movie takes place mostly in outdoor Appalachia, it was filmed mostly in a Hollywood studio.  The soft lighting looks odd, the shadows of camera equipment looks amateurish, and Nelson's directorial eye leaves something to be desired.  The film is so entertained by its two-role gimmick, that it demands to constantly remind us of it.  In scenes that bear no reason for it, shots are framed so that the back of one of the Elvis's heads faces the camera while two other characters are having a conversation.  There's a lot of wrestling around between the two Elvises and sometimes the editing lets slip (long enough to be noticeable) a visage that spoils the illusion. 

Not that he probably had too much say in the matter, but Presley even screened another quickie musical-comedy produced by Sam Katzman, directed by Gene Nelson with music direction by Fred Karger before this project entitled Hootenanny Hoot-- a D-grade precursor to The T.A.M.I. Show with exploitation in the stead of artistic merit and a first-draft cardboard narrative to string together performances.  Kissin' Cousins is equally exploitative, but the music is worse.  It's a movie that puffs itself up by making its stereotypes idiots.  Even letters in the title card are backward, resembling a trend I find offensive amongst preschool signage.  And those kids are four.  The movie leaves you with a sour feeling knowing it made money for such atrocities. -- ½* / four stars


Back to The Films of Elvis Presley

Click Here, Nimrods...

Summary only...