Elvis Presley

  • Easy Come, Easy Go (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2022) In Easy Come, Easy Go, Elvis Presley stars as a Navy diver (also a nightclub singer) who retires and spots a nearby sunken Spanish ship with a fortune in ancient coins. Working with a yoga instructor who exemplifies the then-cutting edge of American culture (while Elvis plays the comfortable, relatable exemplar of a more conservative approach—what a shift!), he launches an expedition to raise the treasure. Since this is a latter-day Elvis film, don’t expect much here but a serviceable plot, plenty of clichés and a few musical numbers from The King. By now, I’m somewhat immune to the so-called terrible nature of Elvis movies: My expectations run low, and I understand the secondary nature of the plot in those films. In fact—the sillier the film, the better it is. As such, I don’t have major complaints about Easy Come, Easy Go—it is that it wants to be, and that’s that. Elvis’ shift to a conservative viewpoint making fun of the wilder gyrations of the hippie generation is probably what’s most interesting here, speaking much about his evolving place in the cultural landscape and explaining why this was one of his last star vehicles. Easy Come, Easy Go becomes an evocative title pointing to more than the bittersweet ending of the film—Former rebels becoming establishment representatives and all that, cultural cachet accumulating then evaporating.

  • King Creole (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) There are roughly two reasons to see King Creole, and both of them have to do with Elvis Presley. For one thing, it’s one of the most drama-heavy films in Presley’s filmography: Dating from a brief moment in his career when he was still aspiring to dramatic range, it has Presley playing a teenage New Orleans hoodlum who gets involved both with performing and organized crime. All shot in black-and-white by noted veteran director Michael Curtiz. In a sense, it’s the closest Presley ever got to playing in a film noir, or in a substantial teenage rebellion film—it may be a musical vehicle at times (with musical numbers integrated in the narrative), but it’s not as fluffy and meaningless as other films he’d later do. So that’s one reason. The second one is far funnier: if you ever wanted to see a movie scene in which Elvis Presley beats up Walter Matthau in a fist-fight, then this is the film for you. I know, I know—it sounds too good to be true, but the evidence is right there. The fight is not necessarily the reason why King Creole is often mentioned as Presley’s overall best movie, but it certainly drives the point that it remains a tougher, rougher role for him. There are plenty of dramatic complications, romantic choices to be made between a girl-next-door and a gangster moll, a future to be decided between singing and remaining a young thug. Pre-Army Presley deals well with the challenges, although he’s clearly still new at this acting business. Still, the result is honourable, and honourable would prove to be a high bar considering the Elvis films that would later follow. If you have one Elvis film to see, well, make it Viva Las Vegas. But if you’re looking for a second, King Creole is it.

  • Elvis (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Seldom has there been a better match of subject matter and filmmaker than seeing Baz Luhrman take no less than the King of Rock and Roll himself Elvis Presley in the newest entry in his too-sparse filmography. The first few minutes are classic Lurhman—nestled flashbacks and visual effects sequences almost acting as a trailer for its own movie, flashing back and forth between the beginning of the relationship between Presley and his manager “Colonel Tom Parker” (who acts as the film’s narrator). It’s all stylized, outrageous, over-the-top and visually inventive—exactly the introduction needed for fans of the director to settle back and enjoy a too-rare Luhrman extravaganza. True to form (see his previous films), Elvis settles down slightly after that—even if it picks up from time to time for some showcase sequences. It all makes the biopic a lot of fun to watch even if the broad outlines and specific details of Elvis’ story are well-known to many. Tom Hanks hams it up as Parker in a thick southern drawl, but it’s Austin Butler who’s most surprising here, delivering an Elvis that’s certainly not a carbon copy of the historical figure but nonetheless works well at evoking the man. In the jukebox-musical tradition, the use of familiar songs to evoke specific emotional moments usually works well, the best being the use of “Trouble” to illustrate the civil-rights era. While this may not be the best Elvis biopic on substance (and skips over some fascinating tangents, such as his relationship with Nixon), it tackles some material more at ease in contemporary discourse—including the appropriation of black music by a white performer and the power of merchandizing over art. You can make a case that the film is (ironically) too glitzy and stylish to delve too deeply into the man behind the jumpsuits—but then again, this is a Luhrman film (only his sixth!), and it had been nine years since his previous ones. The result was worth the wait: this is exactly what we could have expected from “Elvis, a Baz Luhrman film.”

  • Double Trouble (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) So here we have Elvis Presley travelling across Europe while being subject to a number of subplots and… well… that’s it for Double Trouble. By this time in Presley’s film career (this is either the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of his film, depending on whether you count the production or release order), he or his management had long given up on a serious dramatic film persona, and so the film is a bit of an oft-awkward blend of comedy, music and suspense, what with him running around with a young woman targeted by killers and thieves. The blender-mix plotting takes a while to get going (partially to the film’s detriment, although the musical interludes are meant to keep audiences entertained in the interim) and quite a bit of the narrative relies on coincidence—but is any of that really important for the film’s audience? I haven’t seen enough of Elvis’ films to rank Double Trouble with any confidence, but I’m tempted to agree with those fans of his work ranking this in a solid middle-tier—flawed, nowhere near the best, but pleasant to watch and occasionally amusing as well.

  • It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2022) The expression “Clearly a film of its time” strikes both ways for It Happened at the World’s Fair—it would be difficult to imagine it being remade today without being emptied of what makes it special. For one thing, it’s an Elvis film—Elvis Presley here plays a clean-cut young American man (what else?) who’s happiest piloting a small plane or romancing girls (or, in the case of the film’s first remarkable stunt sequence, both at once) but is so unthreatening that an old man sees nothing wrong to ask him to take care of a young girl for a few days. Then there’s the fact that the film takes place at the Seattle World Fair, a uniquely 1962 event. But it’s the Elvis aspect that makes this a film uniquely preserved in time—the ten songs he sings (some of them likable, few of them memorable), the unthreatening womanizing, the sense that there won’t be any serious drama at any time in the film. Another piece of time-capsule history is Kurt Russell’s first movie role as a shun-kicking boy. (Russell would, of course, play Elvis a few decades later, and use his experience meeting The King to record a Presley tribute piece for TCM.)  It Happened at the World’s Fair is never taken seriously, and it’s not that good of a film either: It feels like a second-tier musical running on nostalgic charm more than anything looking like filmmaking craft. The script is serviceable and doesn’t take into account unexpected chemistry (to wit—the early throwaway love interest meant to show Elvis’s character’s good-natured womanizing ends up being far more interesting than the putative female co-lead of the film) or anything like directorial flair from Norman Taurog. But Elvis vehicles are what they are—and this one has the benefit of colourful early-1960s pop-optimism to add to the actor/singer’s undeniable charm. Many Elvis historians agree that It Happened at the World’s Fair is middle-of-the-pack Elvis cinema, and it’s watchable enough as such. But trying to even imagine such a film remade today is an exercise in futility.

  • Jailhouse Rock (1957)

    Jailhouse Rock (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) There’s really one reason to watch Jailhouse Rock, and it’s not the plot, in which a hoodlum goes straight after discovering the power of music. Who plays the lead role, though? Elvis Presley, and he’s the reason why the film is still worth a look. While fans will debate whether this is Elvis’ finest film, most will agree that the title number is The King’s finest moment on-screen: shot like a music video with an expressionistic set, it shows Presley at his absolute prime. The plot, in which a young man goes from convict to musical sensation to Hollywood star, is not bad but it’s not original. As a showcase for the young Presley, however, Jailhouse Rock is nothing short of fantastic and does give justice to The King in his early glory. What exceeds expectation is Presley’s willingness to play an unlikable character—one who starts the film by killing someone with his own bare hands, then spends the rest of the film ready to smash guitars and faces at the slightest opportunity. Making a bid for a bad-boy image, Elvis doesn’t quite know he’s a star yet—but the camera suspects something is up. It’s a disappointment that the film is shot in black-and-white, but then again it wasn’t working with a particularly high budget to begin with. Still, Jailhouse Rock does have another distinction: helping to birth a new kind of musical, away from Broadway inspirations and more closely aligned with then-burgeoning pop music.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, June 2021) Clearly meant to be an Elvis Presley vehicle –his second top billing after Loving You, but the first built from the ground up for him–, Jailhouse Rock is interesting to modern viewers as one of the inflection points in between the classic Hollywood musical and the modern rock video. It’s obviously one of the first films to embrace the rock-and-roll offshoot of rhythm and blues, as it’s about a young convict learning guitar in prison, then going on to stardom as his songs go from relatively sedate numbers such as “Don’t Leave me Now” to catchier “Treat Me Nice” to the faster-paced “Jailhouse Rock” (still acknowledged as Presley’s most memorable screen number) before coming down romantically in time for the finale. Regrettably shot in black-and-white, it was meant as a fast and cheap production rather than an MGM flagship and the seams show – aside from the title number, almost self-contained in its choreography and visual presentation, the film is a by-the-numbers take on the sudden-stardom ur-story, with a dash of romance, business drama and personal growth thrown in. For Elvis, his characterization as a short-tempered, physically violent ex-con (wow, that scene where he walks in an office and starts slapping a records executive!) must have bolstered his bad-boy image – it’s not exactly a heroic role, but it works in context. It’s easy to watch Jailhouse Rock today and see its place as a transition between a certain idea of what a musical film should be, and what it would evolve into later on – with the exact recording of a pop hit taking over the interpretations that, until then, had dominated the genre. It’s alternately naïve (due to sticking to a familiar narrative template) and a bit off-putting due to the lead’s constant violence. But Jailhouse Rock remains well-worth seeing for the title number alone, and for the rest if you’re even a casual Elvis fan.

  • Viva Las Vegas (1964)

    Viva Las Vegas (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Come to Vegas for Elvis, stay for Ann-Margret. At least that’s my reaction to Viva Las Vegas: While the film remains Presley’s best-known film (he made 31 of them in 13 years, but few of them have endured), the real draw here is Ann-Margret as practically the equal to Presley. The plot reads like a melting pot of mid-1960s teenage obsessions, in between the racing, gambling, dancing and singing. The plot naturally leads to an amiable atmosphere and ten snappy musical numbers (including the one-shot of Elvis singing the classic title tune). The portrait of Las Vegas in the early 1960s is simply fascinating, especially considering how the city has changed since then. There’s also a pretty good car race at the climax of the film. Still, the one reason to watch Viva Las Vegas even today is seeing Presley measure up to Ann-Margret—she’s a dynamo of red-headed energy here, and it’s good to see a film in which both romantic leads are equally strong.