Review - Three Classic Elvis Movies

This past weekend my Bonnie Bride had the brilliant idea of having an Elvis Pressley movie marathon. We have not seen the new Elvis movie as yet, hope to see it soon, and this was a way to prepare for that movie. The movies we watched were Jailhouse Rock, Viva Las Vegas, and Tickle Me.

Jailhouse Rock - IMDB

I am going to touch on these in reverse order, and start my write-up with Tickle Me. Watching the trail in advance, the story revolves around a ranch and a nearby ghost town reputed to have actual ghosts. Hey, sounds like fun! Elvis is Lonnie Beale, a champion rodeo rider who is out of cash and need of a job to tide him over until rodeo season starts. He ends up taking a job at a ranch where wealthy young women go (or are sent) to trim up before their next film, lots of starlets, or aspiring starlets. One of the other ranch employees is looking for a fortune her grandfather hid in the aforementioned ghost town, and there are nefarious crooks that are also after the fortune.

Enough of the summary as I don’t want to reveal any spoilers. The film also starred Julie Adams, who owned the ranch, who I have seen in a bunch of movies including The Creature form the Black Lagoon, a favorite ‘50s Universal horror film. Jocelyn Lane played the granddaughter looking for gold in the ghost town. Edward Faulkner plays Brad, one of the ranch hands, who is very jealous of Lonnie’s presence and impact on the ranch. I’ve seen Faulkner in many movies, mostly films he made with John Wayne, including McLintock!. A fine actor. Also of note, Jack Mullaney plays another ranch hand named Stanley, and very recognizable, but had to look him up to see where from (thanks IMDB) as he was in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (a great film staring Vincent Price and Frankie Avalon).

Moving on, we have Elvis in Viva Las Vegas, where he plays a somewhat down on his luck race car driver, Lucky Jackson. Ann-Margaret plays his love interest. It’s a good, solid romantic comedy with a great duet between Elvis and Ann-Margaret, “The Lady Loves Me” -(source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva_Las_Vegas_(EP) ). Lucky is trying to get an engine for his new race car, and has the money, but ends up losing it. Meanwhile he is searching for the woman of his dreams, Rusty Martin, played by Ann-Margaret. Fun film to watch, but like many of Elvis’s films, it’s a rather formulaic story in that he plays a nice guy looking for a nice girl who initially rejects him, with lots of music.

Finally Jailhouse Rock. Elvis’s third film, shot in black and white, is, in many ways, the best of these three films in that it is in many ways a departure of the roles Elvis played in many of his films. It is less comedy, and more dramatic, and the scene filming the title number and dance “Jailhouse Rock” really ROCKS! Elvis plays Vince Everett, who goes to prison after beating a man to death, where he shares a cell with a down on his luck Country singer, Hunk Hogan (played by Mickey Shaughnessy), who teaches him about how to play guitar and sing better. After prison, Vince seeks out a career in music, which gets off to a rocky start, but eventually takes off with the help of love interest Peggy (played by Judy Taylor). In some ways it tracks Elvis’s rise to fame, and is quite different from his other films in that he plays a “bad boy” who went to prison, and only cares about himself, until towards the end, he learns a hard lesson to value what is truly important in life. A slight spoiler about how this film is in part a story about redemption.

Overall, we enjoyed all three films. Jailhouse Rock is the best of the three, with Viva Las Vegas and Tickle Me (still trying to figure out how they came up with that title) being pure escapist entertainment with some darn good songs in them

As a note, I did some background research on the cast using IMDB and wikipedia, while some of it is from having seen some of the movies (like McLintock!) that some of the cast had been in, many times.

Thanks for stopping by.