Rock And Roll Movies

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Elvis' adventures in Hollywood

August 1977, the world is in shock - Elvis Presley, the worlds most popular recording star in history is dead. The worldwide outpouring of grief is incredible and radio stations and TV channels in every corner of the globe sounded out with the unmistakable Presley baritone. The Presley image, sometimes young and viral, more often middle aged and bloated sat beneath the headlines of newspapers everywhere. The King of Rock and Roll was gone, his legacy would be his music but few mentioned the films that Presley had left behind and his own peculiar contribution to the acting field. He made 31 films, not including a couple of concert movies, and not all of them were as bad as you remember.

Elvis famously told interviewers in 1971 that every dream he had ever dreamed had come true a hundred times. There was however one unfulfilled ambition that burnt away behind his public image, the desire, sadly never realized, to become a serious dramatic actor. Even as late as 1977 sources close to Elvis have revealed that the singer was considering giving up touring and getting back into acting. In 1956 Elvis himself told reporters that acting was his greatest ambition and that all his life he had wanted to be an actor, like his idols, Tony Curtis and James Dean.

In fact much has been made of the young Elvis' love of roots blues music and of him lugging a guitar about at Humes High School in Memphis, it was by Elvis' own admission that as a child he dreamed of being Tony Curtis. He also claimed that when he became a cinema usher in 1951 it was not only for the much-needed money but also to see all the movies for free. Childhood friends of Elvis have said that the young singer was a huge fan of Rudolph Valentino who actually died some nine years before Elvis was born. Billy Smith, a cousin of Elvis', said that the young Presley was fascinated with the way Valentino projected so many emotions with his eyes. And of course the teenage Elvis modeled his hairstyle on that of Tony Curtis.

When Elvis went to Hollywood, arriving on Friday August 17 1956, to make his first film, The Reno Brothers, eventually re-titled Love me Tender, for Hal Wallis he was under the impression that he would act and not sign in his films. The previous year Presley had read for Hal Wallis and had believed he was being lined up to play alongside Burt Lancaster and Katherine Hepburn in The Rainmaker. And as strange as it may now seem there were hopes that Presley would be the next James Dean - the singer idolized Dean and by his own admission had seen Rebel without a Cause 44 times. Later when Presley met the film's director, Nicolas Ray he reportedly got down on his knees and recited entire chunks of Rebel's script. He had memorized not just Dean's lines but also those of everyone else, a habit Presley would keep for his entire movie career.

'I have no problem memorizing,' Presley told a reporter on the set of his first film. 'I once memorized General Macarthur's farewell address and I can still reel off Lincoln's Gettysburg speech which I learned in school.'

As soon as shooting began on The Reno Brothers the now familiar media circus went berserk. When Elvis had arrived at the airport thousands of fans had gathered, many of them holding up banners that proclaimed, "Elvis for President" but that was only the tip of the iceberg and day after day fans and journalist lay siege to the film studios. Security was set at an all time high - Elvis was in town and no one in Hollywood, no stranger to big stars, had ever seen anything quite like it.

The first recording session for the soundtrack took place on the second day of filming. That first day Elvis cut the ballad that was to be a running theme throughout the movie. The song was a rewrite of the Civil War ballad, "Aura Lee" and everyone was amazed at the way Elvis nailed it - at that point he was known for belting out rock and roll songs and the tenderness with which he sang this beautiful little number was refreshing. The song, Love me Tender, would become the name of the movie after the original Reno Brothers tag was dropped.

When the film was released the critics were not impressed - "Elvis is an obscene child." Cried out the Hollywood Reporter while Time famously compared him to a goldfish and a sausage. The New York times were also under whelmed by the film but impressed with the vigor of the young singer, saying that he went at his role as if it were Gone with the Wind. In fairness the film is no worse than a lot of B-western made around the time and a lot better than most. Presley, while often awkward on screen, proved his ability in several key scenes.

Elvis was quickly into his second movie and this time it would be better suited to his image. Loving you, 1957, was a thinly veiled autobiography of the actual Elvis story. In the movie Elvis plays Deke Rivers, a singer who is manipulated from the top by his press agent, Miss Glenda, played with relish by Lizabeth Scott. Colonel Tom Parker was furious when he saw some of the dailies, feeling that the press agent was a deliberate swipe at himself. However Elvis's screen managers would all follow this blueprint. In Jailhouse Rock, his cellmate tricks him into singing away fifty per cent of all future earnings. In the dismal Fun in Acapulco, a 12-year-old character gets half of the singer's earnings for securing spots at a nightclub. And in King Creole, arguably the singer's greatest film, Walter Matthau plays a darker version of the Parker/Svengali figure.

Jailhouse Rock followed in 1957 and with this grim prison melodrama Elvis hit his stride and was given some meaty material to play around with. The result was the best Elvis acting experience to date.

"A dreadful film. An unsavory nauseating, queasy making film, to turn even the most insulated stomachs." Said the UK newspaper, The Daily Mirror.

The newspaper missed the point though. All the characters are sleazy, no one is wholly good and everyone has a hidden agenda. But that is the point in this grim and gritty movie, which could in face be termed, Rock and Roll Noir. Elvis plays Vince Everett, a young man sent to jail for manslaughter. While there he is cell mated with a one-time country singer who tutors Elvis and after he appears on a prison TV special he becomes a huge star. Course Elvis knows nothing about this as his cellie, a trustee bribes someone in the mail room to hide all the fan mail. When Elvis is finally released he realizes what a sensation he is and quickly turns his back on everyone until the inevitable redemption at the end of the film.

Jailhouse Rock grossed $4 million at the box office and fans rioted in the cinemas. Today, along with King Creole and Flaming Star, this stands as one of the three truly great Elvis movies.

King Creole followed in 1958 and represents Elvis's best ever screen performance - on times he even manages to sulky intensity of his idol, James Dean. Based on the novel, A Stone For Danny Fisher, the film turned the main character from an up and coming boxer to a signer but retained the gangland milieu.

Elvis knew he was involved in a quality project here and he quickly read the book upon which the film was based in order to get a hook on the character. If Jailhouse Rock had touched on a noir sense of style then King Creole took it all one step further and the world of Danny is one of failed ambitions and a weary cynicism. Elvis rebels against his screen father, horrified with the way the man is able to swallow anything so as not to rock the boat and sees mobster, Walter Matthau as a kind of surrogate father. And for once the critics were impressed.

"Elvis can act." Said the New York Times.

"The part gives him (Elvis) the scope to stop acting like a baboon and to act like a human being. Which he does with a new skill, a new restraint and a new charm." Said The News Chronicle.

However following the film the army beckoned for Elvis and his films would never hit these heights again. One wonders what would have happened if Elvis had been able to carry on with films as multi-layered as King Creole but, as Colonel Parker noted, it might have been a fine picture but it took less at the box office than later films like, Tickle Me.

For Parker it was always about the fast buck, art was secondary, and sadly Elvis never quite managed to break away from the man who had made him what he was but would ultimately destroy the raw and unique talent. Within a few short years Elvis Presley was merely a sad parody of his former self. There were still occasional flashes of brilliance to come, both on the screen and on record, but to paraphrase John Lennon, "Elvis died when he went into the army."