Comments on: The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll Meets the King of the Quickies

By: bOb O.

bOb O. — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:12:52 +0000

Suzidoll:
Good golly miss Molly! That sure is a great article you wrote. I grew up loving those serials and B movies made by the likes of Sam Katzman. In my mid-teens, in the mid 1950s, I discovered Elvis. As a life-long fan, I bristled at friends and acquaintances who unfairly criticized and unfavorably compared him to other actors and singers. But at the same time, I found myself criticizing him at various times throughout my life. I always felt that he could have had better control over his career. After all, he was Elvis Presley. He was the artist. If they wanted him in a movie, it should have been on his terms. In the recording studio, he had his own standards and they were pretty high, as evidenced by most of his musical output.

As to the Colonel not having creative control over Elvis’ scripts or music, I read somewhere that he took money from songwriters who submitted all that inferior music to him to be used in his movies. Then he would insist that Elvis sing and perform that material. That, to my mind, would be exercising some creative control.
Anyway, I really enjoyed your article.

By: Jeff L. Shannon

Jeff L. Shannon — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:25:35 +0000

& please excuse screwups on above page. I’m not doing well, to put it mildy

By: Jeff L. Shannon

Jeff L. Shannon — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:24:40 +0000

IMPORTANT TO SUZIE! This isa terrific pc asusual, however I had to makerecontact with several-(yourself included) So, whenyou see this please drop me a line

& you should do something-(agree or disagree of course) on the 82nd Annual ACADEMY AWARDS

PLEASE JUST REPLY & AS USUAL I THANK YOU

(P.S. I like elvis’ howeverama bona fide *Sinatra-devotee!)

By: fraught

fraught — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:30:09 +0000

Very interesting post. I was just at the age in the 50′s that Elvis hit like a tsunami. I saw him on the Dorsey Brother’s TV show which was his first national appearance. Through Facebook I recently reconnected with my girlfriend with whom I was watching and she remembers that night as well, how this person whom we had never heard of sat us straight up in our seats and became a life long memory. I was 14, she was 13. We were in Connecticut and I suppose the whole southern thing about Elvis was over our heads, but the visual of him and the sound of his voice was a far cry from the Patti Pages and Kitty Kallens whom we being given as a steady diet on the radio and TV. “Your Hit Parade” was lethally boring to us; seeing “Doggie in the Window” re-imagined every week by Dorothy Collins and Snookie Lansen was making us crazy. Naturally, we waited for Elvis’ movies and we went to see “Love Me Tender” but then as the fifties went on and we got further along in high school we somehow outgrew Elvis. Even as teenagers Elvis’ movies were unwatchable. We had seen James Dean movies which were psychologically more complex and some of the theaters in our area were showing foreign films which were more sophisticated. (Brigette Bardot)
I don’t remember any of the kids in my high school talking about going to see an Elvis movie except “Love Me Tender” and after that we were all too soingne to think about going to see low budget musicals with one star. I really thing we were aware that these movies were being aimed at a demographic that was southern or mid-western, rural, working class and that they were dumbed down purposely to appeal to drive in viewers and people in towns where there was one theater. It was probably because we were in Connecticut and there was a veneer of intellectual snobbery in the communities where we were living. It was suburban rather than rural. More Revolutionary Road than Dogpatch. I always wanted Elvis to do the movies that James Dean might have done. There was a place for him in the world of serious movies closer to where Rock Hudson was and where Montgomery Clift had been before his accident.

Yeah, Elvis’ movies always made money but we always knew that the Colonel was stiffing some of us original, early fans as we grew into adults.

By: Al Lowe

Al Lowe — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:35:55 +0000

There’s a book that tells you a little more about Hal Wallis although it wasn’t written about him. Instead the subject is Jerry Lewis and the title is “King of Comedy.” It is well researched and well written, although I have a couple of quibbles.

Anyway, it shows Wallis more interested in purchasing European art than in making quality Martin-Lewis films. It says he generally made low budget films for his company and loaned out Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott and others like Selznick did with his players.

The Wallis portrayal compromises only a small part of the book but you learn more about him than you do from his autobiography, which I read a long time ago.

By: cage free brown

cage free brown — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:59:57 +0000

I love “Kissing Cousins”!
all acting is improved by wearing a blonde wig.

I love “Beckett” too but it certainly would have been improved by replacing O’Toole with another Burton in a blond wig.

By: suzidoll

suzidoll — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:11:39 +0000

Al: I know what you mean about Wallis. I admire him and his peer producers a great deal, but there is something sad about how Wallis handled his new stars of the 1950s and 1960s in old ways. I would like to learn more about him. I have his autobio called STARMAKER, but it conceals as much as it reveals if you know what I mean.

By: Al Lowe

Al Lowe — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:20:53 +0000

Thanks for your response. That clears things up. During a phone conversation with my brother a year or two ago I mentioned that the man who made CASABLANCA also produced Elvis movies. He couldn’t believe it.

I also dislike BECKET. Like everyone else, I like Burton and O’Toole but BECKET is a bore.

I wish Wallis would have stayed at Warners or had gone to MGM. He would have improved the output of either studio. I also wish Martin and Lewis and Elvis would have hooked up with a producer who wanted to be more creative. Oh well.

By: Medusa

Medusa — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:10:51 +0000

You’ve got to admire Katzman’s inventiveness and the way he kept his finger on the pulse of Americans’ entertainment impulses, lowbrow or otherwise. What a character! Movies like “Kissin’ Cousins” or “Harum Scarum” seem like goofy episodes from some 1960′s TV series, and when taken as part of Elvis’ body of work they settle into a spot that seems maybe like a waste of Elvis but as you say is an interesting take on moviemaking tropes.

Great article! Fun and fascinating, Suzi!

By: Suzi

Suzi — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:56:08 +0000

Al: As usual, you raise some good questions. But, your guess about the Colonel is wrong. Parker’s involvement in the creative side of Elvis’s movies was minimal. He made the iron-clad deals with the various producers and studios, which were often convoluted with side deals too complicated to explain here, but he was not that interested in interfering creatively. He sometimes made suggestions, which were often really ridiculous; but it is likely his intent was to get a rise out of the producers and keep them off balance. Everyone likes to blame the Colonel for what they don’t like about Elvis’s career, but the truth is much more complicated.

Parker had no creative input or say on the Wallis-produced Elvis films at all, though he got credit as technical advisor. Wallis was the auteur on those films, and he had no interest in changing the Elvis formula, because it made money. He could actually predict how much money the films would make, and he used that as collateral to borrow money to make his more prestigious films, like BECKET. As a matter of fact the projected profits for ROUSTABOUT (shown this Friday) helped him get the financing for BECKET (which frankly bores me to distraction). As with Martin and Lewis, Wallis constructed a formula for a series of vehicles for Elvis and was not interested in changing the formula. When he could no longer predict a certain amount of profit, he let his contract with Presley run out (EASY COME, EASY GO was the last). I think the Wallis-produced films from the 1950s and early 1960s are highly enjoyable, though the last couple are pretty tired and derivative.

As for other producers, some strayed from the Presley formula (FLAMING STAR, FOLLOW THAT DREAM), with varying b.o. results. Others, like Pasternak, opted to stay with the formula that Wallis had constructed because it did well at the box office. Plus, Pasternak’s two films with Elvis were made at the height of the 1960s teen musical, which Elvis’s films were associated with. Producers thought Elvis’s movies were the high end of that genre. Just compare GET YOURSELF A COLLEGE GIRL to GIRL HAPPY.

The big difference between Wallis and Pasternak’s approaches to producing films in the Golden Age vs. the 1960s has to do with the audience. During the Golden Age, the mainstream audience consisted of diverse ages, backgrounds, and classes. Most films were aimed at adults; there were kids films but they were considered marginal fare. During the 1950s, the average movie-going audience had changed and was no longer one diverse group. It was younger and consisted of various subgroups–teens, college-educated urbanites, young couples. Certain films were made for and targeted to certain groups, a phenomenon that defines the producers’ approach to marketing Elvis. They made movies that the target group (teens in the 1950s and young women in the 1960s)wanted to see; not movies that audiences 50 years later believe Elvis should have made.

Hope this helps some.