FILM / In Defense of Elvis Cinema, or What Lies Beneath Kitsch / Alissa Marmol-Cernat
Image © Paramount Pictures
In the past year, Elvis Presley’s reign over pop culture has seen an unprecedented resurgence on a worldwide scale with the release of Baz Luhrmann’s biographical film, and though now marked by untimely tragedy, the King’s renaissance at the hands of newly-minted fans and longtime admirers alike doesn’t appear to have any quick finale in sight. To that end, many have turned their gaze to Elvis’ own movies—a series of words that is often said to send a shiver down the spine of any film aficionado worth their salt, and supposedly for good reason, too.
At one point in time serving as the only sign of life Elvis’ fans had had for nearly thirteen years, the thirty-one pictures that form Presley’s filmography are commonly remembered as the death of a dream. You see, the boy-who-would-be-king had aspirations of being a “real” actor. A dramatic actor. The star system he’d become embroiled in even as it had declined around him, Colonel Tom Parker, producer Hal Wallis, and the many other beneficiaries of the sweet revenue generated by an endless stream of seemingly vapid movies all had other plans though. As the story goes, G.I. Blues (1960) established the winning formula, and very little departure from it would be permitted. Worse, those who had seen the 1950s Elvis as the ultimate rebel understood his film career to be a sort of selling out; the spiritual defeat of a man who wouldn’t be seen again until the revolutionary 1968 Comeback Special.
But the question is: just how many of us have looked at the genuine cinematic value of these films away from their prescribed place in the artistic hierarchy of all that defines Elvis? Furthermore, how many of us have looked at them in the context of their era?
There is, in fact, much more to these maligned movies than meets the eye.
First and foremost, in the cinematic landscape of the 1960s, Elvis’ movies were certainly no worse than their contemporaries. It’s not the classics of the period that they should be measured up to but the veritable cavalcade of beach movies, musicals and general teen romps that saw a greater increase in production than ever before; and featured the usual staples of teen heartthrobs, pretty girls and exotic locations. If anything, Elvis simply exhibited the most commercially successful avenue of the bunch.
On a purely technical level, many of the directors of these films were relatively competent artists in their own right, too. Norman Taurog, Elvis’ most frequent collaborator, had once been an Academy Award-winning director of the Golden Age of Hollywood and though his glory days were past him by then, occasional sparks of genuine innovation remained. Even the scripts, though dramatic they were not, were often victims of studio-executive meddling and unreasonable demands or plain recycling of unproduced films meant for other star vehicles rather than outright bad writing. That isn’t to say that there aren’t any bad Elvis movies, relative as the term is, as some do prove tedious to get through with little to no substance but one must look at those as the exception and not the rule.
In fact, substance runs aplenty in Elvis cinema if you only know where to look. The films often challenge authority and prove downright fascinating in their portrayal of class dynamics, gender, and sexuality. Like Elvis’ own real life, the primary conflict of a good chunk of his filmography revolves around class differences—the poor young man from a poverty-stricken South who had made it big certainly never escaped scrutiny on the screen. The semi-autobiographical Loving You (1957), Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963), Frankie and Johnny (1966), and Clambake (1967) among many others are all fantasies of social mobility underneath a veneer of comedy.
When society girl Laurel Dodge declares “money isn’t that important” to Elvis’ defeated Ross Carpenter just after he’s finished a shift at his second job in the climax of Girls! Girls! Girls!, he can only reply “no, not when you’ve got it, but it’s important to me” and all at once, the dynamic at the heart of the film is practically spelled out—and that fundamental misunderstanding between the working-class protagonist and his rich love interests often persists to that very same degree throughout many a picture. On the other hand, Clambake (1967) features a rare role-reversal but an equally potent message when the penniless female protagonist explains that her attempts to attract a wealthy husband aren’t merely a whim but a search for stability in a society where women like herself still don’t have too many options.
However, it’s Follow That Dream (1962) that’s possibly the most explicit about its social themes. Marketed as a light-hearted musical, Elvis as Toby Kwimper and his family of homesteaders find themselves outside the societal order established by the government and pay dearly for their transgressions of claiming much-needed benefits or daring to try to build a home for themselves on the side of an unoccupied stretch of highway when the alternative would’ve been effective vagrancy. After Toby rejects the advances of a much older social worker, the family is even forced to fight for the custody of their young children, and Elvis’ courtroom speech at the story’s conclusion makes for a thoroughly moving scene. For a film dismissed as just another comedy, the narrative achieves a surprising level of legitimate political commentary.
And what of the man himself, seemingly tamed by the establishment? Sexually, the cinematic Elvis was as dangerous as the real one had been back in his days of breaking boundaries and inciting riots. Roustabout (1964), doing the all-leather thing four years before the Comeback Special, fits the bill as a case study in the quintessential Elvis protagonist seen through the vast majority of his filmography. More often than not, he’s a drifter, an outcast, sometimes even a pariah—all roles easily exemplified in features like Jailhouse Rock (1957), King Creole (1958), Wild in the Country (1961), the aforementioned Roustabout, Spinout (1966), Easy Come, Easy Go (1967), Stay Away, Joe (1968), and Charro! (1969). If he’s in possession of a respectable job, he’s either fired or outside influences conspire against him. Careers like race car driver, pilot, scuba diver, fisherman, actor or acrobat almost always read like the stuff of children’s fantasies rather than masculine ideals or role models; a doll effectively playing dress-up when the core personality of all of Elvis’ characters stays mostly unchanged and is seen as consistently outrageous in-universe, an angry young man to be kept away on the edges of society.
Ultimately, if efforts had been made towards a homogenized and declawed Elvis Presley, then their effectiveness remains doubtful. Throughout those thirteen years and thirty-one films, Elvis had never lost his makeup, the sway of his hips, the quality that had made him so immediately palpable to every teenager across the nation—they’d just been ignored, hidden underneath seemingly schlocky movies that critics had been devoted to claiming had no redeeming qualities. Yet, at the end of the day, these criminally underrated camp outings are worth a second look and a sincere approach.
Alissa is an aspiring filmmaker and lifelong camp enthusiast. Always on the lookout for the next creative opportunity, she's turned her attention to freelance writing after recently graduating with a BA in Film Studies. When not at the cinema or frequenting comic book conventions, she can be found playing tourist around London.