Filles et show-business

For an Elvis movie his presence here is strictly secondary and he is sidelined throughout. The picture seems like it wanted to be more than it was, which is a run of the mill mystery with a few songs thrown in. It tries to tell a couple of different stories at once, none really compelling, and sort of limps along until it just ends. Of more interest as a chance to spot the familiar face in small parts than anything else. Hey look there's Vincent Price and Buffy from Family Affair and Cindy Brady and WOW look how young Dabney Coleman is! At least the film is loaded with reliable performers, Sheree North, Edward Andrews, Marlyn Mason, John Carradine etc. they just aren't given much to work with. Not a ghastly film just very ordinary and not terribly involving.

While, as some of you may know, I recently went through a marathon of Elvis Presley movies (in tribute to the 30th anniversary of his passing) – and which emerged to be a more pleasant experience than I had anticipated – I have to admit that I opted to check this one out mainly for the presence in it of Vincent Price. As it turned out, his role is quite brief and he doesn't even share any screen-time with Elvis!!

Incidentally, this has to be Presley's most eccentric vehicle: it combines the period setting of the star's own FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (1966) with the carnival backdrop of his ROUSTABOUT (1964); however, he seems quite lost here (this was, in fact, Elvis' penultimate film) in which he's given just one typical number ("Clean Up Your Own Back Yard") and where his hair-do and trademark stage moves clash with the feel of quaint Americana the narrative is striving for! Otherwise, the film features annoyingly flashy direction, while the traits of the supporting characters range from the obnoxious (the cardsharp and the villainous store owner) to the embarrassing (Joyce Van Patten reminiscing about her past as a champion swimmer and Sheree North's bout with drunkenness).

Besides, the songs are below-par (most don't even involve the star) and the title itself terrible (apparently, the people who made it didn't quite know how to sell their own product!) – even if we do get three prominent female roles: Marlyn Mason (whose shop steward/piano player/instructor character seems to have been modeled on Doris Day's role in THE PAJAMA GAME [1957]), Nicole Jaffe as the requisite ditzy blonde, and the afore-mentioned North as a 'loose' woman (a single mother who murders the married sleazeball who relentlessly pesters her). Also featured in the cast are Edward Andrews as the long-suffering managing director of Presley's traveling show and John Carradine, criminally underused in a blink-and-you'll miss-him bit as a Shakespearean actor (whose incongruity reminds one of Alan Mowbray's memorable similar turn in John Ford's MY DARLING CLEMENTINE [1946]).

As for Vincent Price, he appears as "Mr. Morality", a philosophy-quoting orator who's another specialty performer of the troupe; having watched him in this film, I was reminded of two more of the horror icon's non-genre performances (both of them Westerns, incidentally) which are available for rental on DVD in my neck of the woods – THE JACKALS (1967) and MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE (1968).

It's 1927. A traveling Chautauqua show arrives in a small Iowan town. Walter Hale (Elvis Presley) is the new manager of the struggling company.

This is most notable for being one of Elvis' last films. One may also notice The Brady Bunch's Cindy. Elvis may be trying to do some acting but I'm not sure how far into the drug haze he is at this point. I expected more from him and his character. He is still very beautiful with his natural charms. In the end, the plot has no narrative drive and Elvis isn't doing that much with the character. It's like he hasn't grown as an actor and he doesn't have that many songs in this one. It's trying for some light comedy but it's not getting much laughs. It's the end of an era.

Elvis Presley runs a traveling medicine show that sweeps into a small Ohio town and stirs up the locals. Interesting (if not entirely convincing) 1920s production design (no one had hair like Elvis in the '20s...or so I've been told), cute kids running around (including Anissa Jones from "Family Affair" and an uncredited Susan Olsen from "The Brady Bunch"), Dabney Coleman doing his schmuck-thing (very well), and a hilarious Joyce Van Patten as an Olympic swimmer. Elvis drops out of sight for much of the proceedings; he's around to break up a fight or help pitch a tent, but the film is mostly about the wacky small town folk. In the final minutes, when Elvis gets up on stage with his guitar, the movie is suddenly no longer about these supporting characters--it's all about E.P. whipping the audience into a frenzy, and the cinematographer goes wild with his zoom-lens. "Girls" is misguided, oddly directed, and unsure of what audience to target, yet there are some good things in it, including an interesting milieu for its star. ** from ****

Although Elvis' fans may be disappointed at his lack of screen time here, he's actually in a role that is suitable to his persona -- a free-wheeling carnival organizer in turn of the century middle America. The festival he is promoting is no ordinary carnival, though -- it also features theater and philosophical dissertations (delivered by none other than then king of horror Vincent Price) and a kiddie talent show that motivates part of the plot. The rest of the plot is motivated by sleazy merchant Dabney Coleman, and his relations to the mother of a girl in the talent show.

The children in the talent roles are really excellent performers, and this whole production has a quality and a care taken with it that no other post 1966 Elvis movies can boast of. The title is really a turn off, but this is a movie that not only would have stood on its own without Elvis, but which actually benefits by his performance. Solid quirky directing in all but the musical numbers, somewhat interesting movie.