Le grand frisson

Nothing about the movie plot here, just the music and the newly revived Elvis. His sideburns were back, his body was slender and more muscular, looking better than he had looked in a movie since "Blue Hawaii". Michelle Carey is his costar, a buxom slightly kooky girl full of energy. There are only about three songs in the movie, but all are first rate, beginning with "Edge of Reality", which came out on a single as the flip side of "If I Can Dream", the single that came from Elvis' 68 comeback TV special. "Edge" is a very good off beat song that to many fans was better than "Dream" and helped make the record a double sided hit. The next is "A Little Less Conversation", an up tempo number that, as you all know by now, was remixed and re-released a couple of years back and became Elvis' 31st number one hit. Then there is "Almost in Love", a great quirky love ballad that is one of his better songs ever. This is a highly enjoyable movie and better than many of his others. See it.

A talented young photographer (Elvis Presley) lands two jobs in the same building and slinks his way back and forth. One job is for a high tone advertising agency and the other is for a slick girlie magazine. Michelle Carey plays the sex starved landlady. Better than average Elvis flick featuring four good tunes. "Edge of Reality" song and scene are very memorable. So is scene of Presley and Carey in bed. This comedy also stars Don Porter, Dick Sargent and Rudy Vallee. Elvis' movie career on an up swing. Norman Taurog directs.

And the truth is that this is a good film. It's a very atypical film, as were all of Elvis' last few scripted movies in one way or another. Actually, it's a somewhat weird film, and probably the most unusual that Elvis did in terms of being 'out there' a way. It wasn't even released in the UK -- if so, it's a pity, because people who'd finally grown tired of the '60s musicals might have found redeeming value in this one.

Here we have Elvis playing an adult for one of the few times in his career, complete with more coarse language than he'd been given before, a lot more innuendo, and even a bed-sharing with his female co-star. It's an interesting piece and one that was largely missed by many as Elvis' '60s film formula began to lose its successful appeal around the time of "Easy Come, Easy Go," "Clambake," and "Speedway." Elvis himself was probably more interested by this point in projects more dear to him -- the legendary 1968 television special , announced a couple of months before shooting began on this movie, was shot three months after this film. He'd also recently returned to the studio with new vigor to produce some excellent non-soundtrack songs . Still, he does a great job in his role as a news and fashion photographer and manages to squeeze in a great knock-down, drag-out fight with a couple of men (played by bodyguards Red and Sonny West, two-thirds of the 'insiders' who contributed to a 1977 tell-all book that broke the dying king's heart...nice to see them belted around, actually). He even decks Dick Sargent, the 'second Darrin' from "Bewitched." It was probably a toss up whether Elvis enjoyed the fight scene or his wild driving more.

The movie's pacing leaves something to be desired, especially during the second half, and it could definitely have been much better -- kind of a recurring refrain for almost all of Elvis' post-1967 movies. It's not the most exciting story, but Elvis is great -- he looks supercool, he runs through a fair few emotions quite convincingly, and he's generally one groovy cat. Michele Carey is supremely sexy but her character is tremendously annoying. I don't know what kind of mental problems she's supposed to have -- she's portrayed as functionally, if not actually, a multiple-personality type -- but I suppose that some of her ephemeral nature and far-outness reflects the pop culture of the times. As Elvis said, "Nuts. Absolutely nuts." She even feeds Elvis a pill that keeps him asleep for days. Speaking of drug references, whoever designed the "Edge Of Reality" dream sequence must have been on some interesting substances at the time. Far out, man. Anyway, Ms Carey's bodacious Bernice (or whatever she wants to call herself) gets on my nerves, as it does on Elvis' Greg Nolan, and as I suspect it would on just about anybody. The problem is that it's to an extent that's detrimental to the film. Maybe they could have toned her back a bit -- she is good at the role, though, and also provides some comic relief (albeit sometimes exasperating). The chemistry between her and Elvis is spot-on, too.

It's fun to see familiar Los Angeles landmarks, even though I first came to that city almost 20 years after this film was shot. Elvis spent a lot of time in L A and there's just something fundamentally weird, for me, about seeing him driving around the city that a couple of decades or so later I'd be tooling around. Maybe coming to the US from another country helps emphasize that weirdness. By the way, Elvis' father is seen sitting at a table at the LA Music Center. Speaking of family, Albert, the Great Dane, is played by Elvis' dog, Brutus (Elvis had two Great Danes at the time -- the other was Snoopy). I must say that I find this amateur dog's acting very impressive.

Among the human supporting cast are Don Porter, as a Hugh Hefner type, and Rudy Vallee. Both are perfect in their roles and it's cool to see Elvis with Rudy Vallee, the singing idol of an earlier generation. Also of note is the girl who played the mermaid model, Susan Henning, who also showed up on the 1968 TV Special as an 'intimate' of Elvis' "Guitar Man" and who had a torrid real-life romance with him. I think that one or two of the other models in this film showed up on Elvis' TV special, too.

All of Elvis' last few movies, after "Speedway" (filmed during the summer of 1967) featured fewer songs than most of those that had come before. This film has only four songs: the happy "Wonderful World" (somewhat ironic for the time, just after the Tet Offensive and just before Martin Luther King's assassination), the dramatic (and overlooked) "Edge Of Reality," the funky "A Little Less Conversation," and the lounge-singerish "Almost In Love." The impetus for me revisiting this film was that a remixed version of "A Little Less Conversation" has just -- yesterday -- topped the US pop charts, 25 years after Elvis' death. As I write, Elvis has been #1 in the UK for a phenomenal three consecutive weeks (maybe four, by the time this is posted), has spent three weeks on top of the Irish charts, and spent at least a week or two (so far) at #1 in each of Japan, Hong Kong, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and Mexico. He's currently Top-5, Top-10, Top-20, and Top-40 in a bunch of other countries around the world. With the success of this single, Elvis broke the tie that had him and the Beatles matched for British #1 hits -- now he has 18 to his credit to their 17. Pretty amazing, and particularly ironic that a fairly obscure '60s movie song was the one that did the trick.

This must be Elvis' strangest film. It starts off in high gear, throws in a lot of mysterious twists, features a beautiful and funny co-star (Michele Carey--where are you? We need you back!), and has an intriguing soundtrack which doesn't sound remotely like anything else Elvis ever recorded--it even has a freak-out sequence, with the King singing a psychedelic song! I'm guessing that the creators of this film wanted to make a "swinging sixties" version of a screwball comedy, and they almost succeeded. For the first half, I thought I'd discovered a lost classic...or at least a lost camp classic! However, about mid-way through, the breakneck pace slows down, the weirdness goes away, and the rest of the film stumbles along like a mediocre sitcom. Still, no one could accuse this oddity of being a "formula" film, at least the first half. And this Elvis fan would much rather watch this or the equally quirky THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS than watch GI BLUES or BLUE HAWAII. TCM showed this letterboxed, the way it should be seen, so you might want to wait a year or two until a DVD comes out...or at least until TCM has another Elvis festival and shows the letterboxed version at 3 a.m...rather than watch it panned and scanned. I think that anyone with the least interest in Elvis would enjoy watching this film, if only for the freakout sequence with the song "Edge of Reality."

After the Doris Day/Rock Hudson era, America was moving into the era of the psychedelic sixties. Relationships in movies were less about playing the games of the fifties and more about being direct. So, you are more likely to see a woman be the aggressor in the later sixties. The female lead in this movie chases Elvis until he catches her. The dream sequence is less like a Dali painting than those in the fifties and more psychedelic in lighting. Some seem to equate "kooky" with the sixties, perhaps due to the influence of drugs, and that carries through in this plot and the characterization of the female lead. One might call this film a sex farce set midst the California lifestyle.

I enjoyed this film. Though the story was silly, the energy of the film was upbeat and fun. The women were beautiful, the music was consequential and Elvis actually seemed to be enjoying himself at times (did you ever notice how he seldom smiles in some of his films?). Yes, there are plenty of cinema clichés and some throwaway scenes, but I enjoyed the kooky chemistry between Elvis and Bernice. Injecting the obligatory Elvis fistfight does not help the story or the pacing, but Elvis manages to move the story along with his personality. See Viva Las Vegas for a film with real magnetism between the stars.