[July 19th was a doubly significant day for Elvis Presley: on July 19, 1954, his debut single was released; and on July 19, 1977, what would be his final album dropped. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to the Elvis mythos, leading up to a special post on cultural representations of Presley!]
On
AmericanStudies takeaways from three stages in Presley’s iconic film career.
1)
Love Me Tender (1956): Just
two years after his first single dropped, and a couple months before the famously
scandalous Ed Sullivan Show performance, Presley made his film debut in this
musical Western. Although the film was named after Presley’s ballad (which
had been released in August 1956, and a performance of which was included in
the film), he didn’t receive top billing, reflecting his far-from-established
connection to the movie business in this very early moment. But by far the most
prominent aspect of the film (SPOILERS) was that Presley’s character is killed
in its climactic shootout, a storytelling choice that literally led to a fan protest
at the film’s premiere and a subsequent re-release
with an alternate ending. Even in his film debut, Elvis was causing a commotion.
2)
A Billion 1960s Films: Okay, not a billion,
but: every year between 1962 and 1969 Presley starred in three films, for a
total of 24 films released in that period (with another two each in 1960 and
1961, so 28 total in the decade). I know there were a lot more films being made
and released in general in that era than in our 21st century moment
(and that they took much shorter to make than do today’s), but it’s hard for me
to believe any major performer appeared in more 1960s films than that. And as
you might expect, quantity did not necessarily lead to quality, to the point
that, according to his wife Priscilla’s 1985 memoir
Elvis and Me, Elvis was quite miserable with his film career’s
dimishing returns, believing for example that 1967’s
Clambake represented a career low.
3)
Charro! and Change of Habit (both
1969): Fortunately, Elvis was a big enough star that we had able to help change
that narrative, and he did so especially with two of his final three dramatic
film performances (along with the still-more-perfunctory The Trouble with Girls
from the same year). Charro!
was another Western and not dramatically different from any of his others
in that genre, but importantly was the only film in which Elvis did not sing on
screen, reflecting his desire to develop his acting talents and career (as, perhaps,
does his character’s beard, the only in his entire filmography). And he did so even
more overtly and successfully in his final dramatic role in Change of Habit, in
which Elvis plays inner-city doctor (!) John Carpenter alongside Mary Tyler Moore (!!) as
a nun who becomes his love interest (!!!). As with so many things Elvis Presley,
it would have been very interesting to see where film career might have gone
from here if not for his tragic death a few years later.
Next
ElvisStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other takes on Elvis?
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