Easy Come, Easy Go

Easy Come, Easy Go (1967)

** (out of 4)

Elvis plays a former Navy frogman who discovers a buried treasure and must try and reach it before anyone else can. This is a pretty bad and stupid film but it thankfully enters into the camp territory and gets a few laughs along the way. The story is pretty bland and something we haven't seen in countless other films and lets not forget the subplot of Elvis and his women, which we've also seen in countless other films of his. As for Elvis, he isn't horrible here but there's not too much to the performance. He seems a bit livelier here than in the previous picture I watched but he's still a long way off from an actual good performance. The title track and "The Love Machine" are pretty good tunes but "Yoga Is As Yoga Does" is pretty embarrassing. "I'll Take You", written by Ed Wood's former lover Dolores Fuller, isn't too bad and Ray Charles' "Leave My Woman Alone" comes off fairly good.

Elvis Presley was coming to the end of his cycle as a big name movie box office star when Easy Come, Easy Go was made for Paramount. We were deep in the flower power era by 1967 and Elvis was ceding his top spot to the lads from Liverpool and their imitators.

The one thing about Elvis films were was that the whole film was sold on the personality of its star. If it was a good script with an intelligent story line that was gravy. Easy Come, Easy Go was a steak tartar of a film.

No hit songs came out of this movie, but Colonel Tom Parker as he always did made sure the King was always given a good supporting cast of veteran Hollywood players. In this case we have two of the best. Elsa Lanchester has a brief bit as a yoga instructor who literally ties the King in knots. And she even sings a line or two with Elvis. Not a duet combination anyone would ever have dreamed.

Also Frank McHugh plays Captain Jack who owns a marine supply store who's never been to sea. Mr. McHugh graced just about every other Warner Brothers film during the hay day of the studio system and was always a welcome whimsical presence. He's no less welcome here in what turned out to be his feature film swan song. McHugh's problem is that he gets seasick in a row boat.

Elvis is a Navy Seal who on his last day in the service discovers some buried treasure at the same time some other folks have. He enlists the help of his former partner Pat Harrington, Jr. and McHugh in trying to get to the treasure. Of course Elvis has a couple of girls after him, Dodie Marshall and Pat Priest.

It's pleasant and entertaining enough, but not up to the standards of stuff like Blue Hawaii or Jailhouse Rock for Elvis.

In this movie Elvis plays a Navy Seal. This is not one of my favorite Elvis movies. It's not the worst movie that he did, but it is the best of the worst. There were some good scenes, and having Pat Priest in the movie made it worthwhile. There were some funny scenes but nothing great.

A frogman (Elvis) working for the Navy discovers treasure in a sunken ship and once he becomes an ordinary citizen he sets out to retrieve it; but he's got competition for it.

One of Elvis's later entries; quite shallow and cheesy but fairly enjoyable. The slapstick humor works OK in parts and there's an underlying comic jab at the hippie lifestyle that's well played out. There are also some impressive underwater sequences here; "Easy Come, Easy Go" is a little more visually compelling than other Presley flicks around this time.

The songs are few but pretty good (6 in total) and many have commented on "Yoga is as Yoga Does" as Elvis's most embarrassing moment on film. Personally I think nothing can top his singing to the dogs in "Paradise, Hawaiian Style" but I also think the Yoga moment here is pretty funny and the song OK; in a cheesy sort of way. You gotta admire how the King was a professional through and through and pulled this off and manages to be funny as well in his bungled Yoga attempts.

"Easy Come, Easy Go" is hardly the King's best - but still, it ain't that bad. I certainly prefer it to "Harum Scarum."

And it does have a few killer songs, including "The Love Machine" & the irresistible "I'll Take Love," performed as the finale (it should have been a hit single).

But having said that, Elvis looks bored at various times. As he put it, by then he was tired of beating up the bad guys and then singing to them.

It's too bad that he never got a role in a truly serious film directed by a truly serious director later in his career because I believe he could have been taught, encouraged and coaxed into some truly terrific serious dramatic performances - and not just the brooding, pouting youth roles a la "Wild In The Country" or "Jailhouse Rock." Perhaps in a smaller serious role.

Imagine him as naive good old boy male prostitute Joe Buck in Jon Voight's shoes in "Midnight Cowboy"? I really think he could have done something special with a serious role like that in a serious film. Roles such as that could have changed his entire career - and how people viewed him.