Blu-ray Review: Viva Las Vegas (1964) - 50th Anniversary Edition

Now Available to Own  
(Along with Blu-ray Premiere of Elvis: That's the Way It Is) 


  
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Related Reviews:

Elvis: 75th Birthday Collection (6 Films)

Elvis: Blu-ray Collection (3 Films)

Introduction

As it’s since become not only one of the most popular records in his entire career but also the unofficial theme song to Sin City, in retrospect, it’s mind-boggling to discover that Elvis Presley’s then under-marketed movie title song “Viva Las Vegas” would reach only #29 on the Billboard Music Charts in its original release.

Foolishly relegated to the B-side of his Ray Charles cover “What’d I Say?” (which the record company had dropped as the lead single just three weeks earlier), executives hoping to double down on interest wound up pitting one track by the King against another.

But although “Say” won more fans in the states in its original battle of airplay and listener requests, the film in which both songs were first performed onscreen had far greater appeal with everyday filmgoers and Elvis fans alike as ticket-buyers turned the 1964 release into the eleventh highest grossing picture of the year as Presley’s biggest box office hit.

Timing its new Digibook debut to Elvis Week – while cinematically speaking Viva’s dueling dual release of Elvis: That’s the Way It Is has the most bang for its buck given that it’s bowing on Blu-ray for the first time and boasts two versions in one – Viva’s collectible photo filled book makes it a must for fans of Presley’s slick crowd-pleasing endeavor.

Likewise, it’s a welcome treat for those eager to own Vegas on its own as opposed to packaged together in WB’s previous 3 film set release four years ago when it made its high definition debut alongside Jailhouse Rock and Elvis on Tour.

The first of a handful of feature films to be choreographed by West Side Story actor David Winters (whose innovative work still dazzles in the film’s whopping ten song and dance numbers), Viva Las Vegas showcases Elvis at the peak of his charismatic powers as a screen performer.

Admittedly of course, the chemistry between Presley and Ann-Margret is palpable from their earliest scenes together onscreen. Nonetheless, it’s still fascinating to go back and look at the studio’s potent hype machine in action, given the PR memos and publicity loglines included in the collectible book which reveal the strategic plans MGM had to capitalize on the sex appeal of its newest starlet.

But holding her own opposite the King in what was – throughout Presley’s pictures a traditionally thankless part for young women certain to be upstaged in ever-interchangeable turns as “the girl” or love interest – Viva’s Ann-Margret proved she was more of a match for Elvis than MGM’s bosses had ever anticipated.

From instructions for advertisers to “make [a] large blow up of this rear, sensuous view” of her rear complete with the teaser pitch of “Who is she? We can’t tell you yet but we can say that she is the most lovely, talented dish to hit the screens in many a year,” the PR department instructed fans to “watch for her.”

And as Viva Las Vegas proved back in 1964 (and today once again thanks to this gorgeous release), those in Ann-Margret’s orbit both offscreen in the form of film fans and onscreen in the form of her visibly mesmerized costar – The King of Rock ‘n Roll – were only too happy to oblige.

Original Blu-ray Review
(From the release of Elvis: Blu-ray Collection - Published 8/17/10)

Whereas Jailhouse Rock excelled at showcasing Presley's promise as an actor, Viva Las Vegas served as one of the King's most quintessentially '60s splashy MGM Elvis musical confections.

Reuniting with his Bye Bye Birdie star Ann-Margret, acclaimed director George Sidney (Pal Joey, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate) managed to get an unlimited amount of mileage out of the sizzling sexual chemistry shared between the two leads, making their onscreen professions of motor revving race car driver (Elvis) and smoking hot swimming instructor and pool manager (Ann-Margret) seem especially fitting.

And sure enough it's all the two could do to keep their hands off of one another offscreen which infuriated his wife Priscilla when word and far too many photos spread back to Graceland.

With this in mind, it's extremely easy to predict that soon after Grand Prix driver Lucy Jackson (Presley) meets Swedish siren Ann-Margret's sweet-natured Rusty Martin, her resolve that she's “one gal [he'll] never get,” will disappear as soon as the two share a dance.

And dance they do in the production number filled Viva which finds Elvis singing even more than usual onscreen in some true toe-tappers, offering us his own rendition of Ray Charles' “What'd I Say” along with the sensational show-stopping title track which was filmed in a single take with only one camera, illustrating his high degree of perfectionism as a performer.

Sadly however it's bogged down by its one-dimensional screenplay from otherwise talented Shadow of a Doubt scribe Sally Benson perhaps best known for her stories which inspired MGM's Meet Me in St. Louis.

And while the admittedly corny and forgettable Las Vegas doesn't offer anything new in the realm of Elvis pictures, it nonetheless entertains the hell out of us from the confines of his traditional fast-paced rhythm and racing paradigm.

Once dubbed “the female Elvis,” sultry Ann-Margret is on sex kitten overload. She dives headfirst from her initially wholesome Esther Williams style introduction into an approach that goes beyond Marilyn Monroe's innocent pin-up into more aggressively carnal terrain, growling like a tiger at the camera while never failing to shake her moneymaker even when she's walking in a straight line.

To this end, it hinges on camp at times, abandoning the cinematically refreshing approach of Elvis musical realism in the “Viva” number with some laughable montages as the characters undergo endless costume and scenery changes in a single date straight out of various sound stages off the MGM backlot.

All the same, while it's just as impossible to take seriously as other Presley productions of that particular decade and George Sidney's ambitious nature to cram a dozen pictures into one gives it a bit of a variety show feel, Viva Las Vegas still remains a sunshine bright work of escapism.

And in this high definition presentation, Vegas is augmented even more with WB's diamond flawless Blu-ray transfer that races into your living room with vivid colors, scintillating chemistry, and pitch-perfect musical numbers.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Elvis Blu-ray Collection (Jailhouse Rock; Viva Las Vegas; Elvis on Tour)

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Related Review:Elvis 75th Anniversary Birthday Celebration

Jailhouse Rock (1957)

For a man who lived to entertain, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the King's debut on the MGM studio lot than to have had the reigning legend of cinematic song and dance, Singin' in the Rain's Gene Kelly appear on set and burst into applause after seeing the now iconic musical title number of Jailhouse Rock in a run-through rehearsal.

Having incorporated numerous Presley hip-shaking movements into that sequence in addition to offering Elvis a chance to play his most dangerous part yet as a Quentin Tarantino described “surly, mean, nasty, rude” definition of “rockabilly,” it's no wonder Jailhouse Rock has become so synonymous with the King that it was chosen for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2004.

While his subtle debut in Love Me Tender had fared well with fans and critics alike, 1957's Jailhouse Rock was not just the first but arguably the best Presley MGM film. Director Richard Thorpe's black and white effort boasted not only a complicated screenplay featuring multi-faceted characters but also showcased Presley's range as an actor which was often wasted in far too many “boy meets girl” flirting, singing, dancing and romancing movies that followed.

Sadly however, the King refused to watch Jailhouse Rock as well as his previous picture Loving You because they featured two women who died shortly after their completion, consisting of Rock star leading lady Judy Tyler and Presley's own beloved mother who'd been onscreen in Loving.

And while it's understandable that the movies may have hit a bit too close to home for Presley himself, perhaps the reason that Rock in particular managed to work so amazingly well is because it seemed to come from such a personal place to which Presley could relate and transfer into his performance.

Although it certainly wasn't the only punch that Presley would deliver onscreen, Jailhouse Rock's opening bar fight resulted in more than just rescuing a woman from the advances of a man. After his character Vince Everett gets caught up in his temper and lands one blow too many -- accidentally killing another man -- he's sent to the big house for manslaughter.

Finding an unlikely mentor and surrogate father figure in his cell mate, a former country music singer way past his prime in the form of Hunk Haughton (Mickey Shaughnessy), Vince soon learns to play the guitar and begins making plans to go on the road with Hunk upon his release. However, when a TV network prompts the warden to throw “a party in the county jail,” Everett and “the prison band” are there and they begin "to wail,” as he croons a beautiful song that generates him the type of fan mail befitting of...well, the King.

Joining forces with Tyler's brainy beauty, a music promoter and talent scout named Peggy Van Alden, Vince begins shopping his demo all over town but after his uniquely sexy take on hitting the notes is copied by a popular, safe, cookie cutter musician, Vince and Peggy form their own record company and build his career from the ground up. And throughout his single-minded determination for wealth and power regardless of how many people he needs to cut down on his upward climb, Peggy and Vince fight the attraction between them with their resolve to keep things professional especially given Vince's penchant for insensitivity, self-absorption along with his world class sense of entitlement.

Yet even though viewers realize precisely what will happen by the time it fades to black, screenwriter Guy Trosper (working from a story by Nedrick Young) consistently impresses us with his refusal to settle with the type of first draft work from which Presley's later films would suffer. More specifically, Rock avoids predictability concerning Hunk's eventual reunion and his evolving relationship with Vince on the outside in addition to the final twist that leads to Vince's wake-up call when it comes to the way he's treated Peggy since day one.

Couple this with first rate performances from its main ensemble cast especially the young Judy Tyler who left us much too soon, blended together with Presley's daring embrace of darker material as the gorgeous rock 'n roller donned stripes to become music's rebel with a cause and you're left with an Elvis classic that fully deserves being appreciated on an overall cinematic level and not just in terms of Presley pictures.

Viva Las Vegas (1964)

Whereas Jailhouse Rock excelled at showcasing Presley's promise as an actor, Viva Las Vegas served as one of the King's most quintessentially '60s splashy MGM Elvis musical confections.

Reuniting with his Bye Bye Birdie star Ann-Margret, acclaimed director George Sidney (Pal Joey, Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate) managed to get an unlimited amount of mileage out of the sizzling sexual chemistry shared between the two leads, making their onscreen professions of motor revving race car driver (Elvis) and smoking hot swimming instructor and pool manager (Ann-Margret) seem especially fitting.

And sure enough it's all the two could do to keep their hands off of one another offscreen which infuriated his wife Priscilla when word and far too many photos spread back to Graceland. With this in mind, it's extremely easy to predict that soon after Grand Prix driver Lucy Jackson (Presley) meets Swedish siren Ann-Margret's sweet-natured Rusty Martin, her resolve that she's “one gal [he'll] never get,” will disappear as soon as the two share a dance.

And dance they do in the production number filled Viva which finds Elvis singing even more than usual onscreen in some true toe-tappers, offering us his own rendition of Ray Charles' “What'd I Say” along with the sensational show-stopping title track which was filmed in a single take with only one camera, illustrating his high degree of perfectionism as a performer.

Sadly however it's bogged down by its one-dimensional screenplay from otherwise talented Shadow of a Doubt scribe Sally Benson perhaps best known for her stories which inspired MGM's Meet Me in St. Louis.

And while the admittedly corny and forgettable Las Vegas doesn't offer anything new in the realm of Elvis pictures, it nonetheless entertains the hell out of us from the confines of his traditional fast-paced rhythm and racing paradigm.

Once dubbed “the female Elvis,” sultry Ann-Margret is on sex kitten overload. She dives headfirst from her initially wholesome Esther Williams style introduction into an approach that goes beyond Marilyn Monroe's innocent pin-up into more aggressively carnal terrain, growling like a tiger at the camera while never failing to shake her moneymaker even when she's walking in a straight line.

To this end, it hinges on camp at times, abandoning the cinematically refreshing approach of Elvis musical realism in the “Viva” number with some laughable montages as the characters undergo endless costume and scenery changes in a single date straight out of various sound stages off the MGM backlot.

All the same, while it's just as impossible to take seriously as other Presley productions of that particular decade and George Sidney's ambitious nature to cram a dozen pictures into one gives it a bit of a variety show feel, Viva Las Vegas still remains a sunshine bright work of escapism. And in this extraordinary high definition collection that shows us three sides of the King, it's augmented even more with a diamond flawless Blu-ray transfer that races into your living room with vivid colors, scintillating chemistry and pitch-perfect musical numbers.

Elvis on Tour (1972)

Whether it's Broadway or Hollywood and you're an actor or a singer, all entertainers know that the show must go on and that it did for Elvis over the course of this 1972 tour which took the King through fifteen cities in fifteen nights.

Although he'd been struggling with weight and health issues as well as the end of his marriage to Priscilla Presley, just two months after the two separated, the fifteen one-night stands of wildly successful and frequently sold out series of concerts were documented in Robert Abel and Pierre Adidge's Golden Globe award winning follow up to 1970's concert film Elvis: That's the Way It Is.

The thirty-third and final motion picture to feature Presley, Elvis on Tour was also the only one of his works to receive an award. In a post-Woodstock, pre-MTV world of shortening attention spans, '50s nostalgia as well as stadium arena rock shows, Elvis on Tour is at times as admittedly over-the-top as its subject was during this era.

Before Madonna made reinvention trendy, Elvis abandoned the sexy kung fu black leather get-up he'd donned in the '68 Comeback Special. On Tour, he moved into a cheesy Vegas lounge act worthy phase of oversized gold belts, bedazzled leisure jumpsuits, large sunglasses, scarves, and capes made to give the illusion of eagle's wings as though he could soar off the stage before the announcer proclaimed that “Elvis has left the building.”

Yet despite this rather stylishly unfortunate period in the life of the King that is sadly copied to no end by Elvis impersonators around the globe to this day, Elvis Presley proved in this roughly ninety minute work that he still had the voice to thrill and looks to kill.

In more than twenty tunes he performs during the film both onstage with his incredibly talented ensemble of backup singers and musicians as well as off the stage in rehearsals, hallways or in the car, Presley revisits the classic rockabilly number one records that first made him a star in addition to tackling the work of his contemporaries in some inspired covers.

To this end, Elvis blends together songs to create unexpected medleys that lead from rhythm and blues into gospel and from nearly operatic ballads that find him playing with his musical techniques by hitting notes one wouldn't naturally assume would fall into his range.

And although the film's distracting rapid edits detract from the power of his vocal instrument by fixating far too heavily on screaming, lust-filled women of all ages in the audience rather than simply letting us kick back and enjoy the concert, overall it's a historic and vital work for Elvis fans to watch him dazzle thousands of adoring attendees in his last cinematic portrait.

Containing some vintage, nostalgic montages utilizing photos, videos and Ed Sullivanfootage supervised by Woodstock crew member turned filmmaker Martin Scorsese -- while the endless split screen approach of Elvis on Tour has dated this '72 release, the wonderfully crisp HD audio soundtrack enhanced on this Blu-ray disc is proof that for true Elvis fans, the show continues to go on.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Review: Elvis 75th Birthday Collection: Clambake; Flaming Star; Follow that Dream; Frankie & Johnny; Kid Galahad; Love Me Tender; Wild in the Country

Now Available to Own

Clambake (1967)

It’s ironic that he sings “Who needs money? Not me,” since Clambake marked the last major studio film that would net Elvis Presley a seven figure salary.

A box office bomb that was released the same year as Bonnie and Clyde, which ushered in a new school of filmmaking that reflected the counter-culture, antihero mentality, and allegories surrounding the Vietnam war, Clambake is one of the King’s lesser efforts that seems dated even by the time of its theatrical run as a beach movie that would’ve probably appealed more to the Frankie and Annette or Sandra Dee audiences of the early ‘60s.

Borrowing its plot from The Prince and The Pauper, Elvis plays Scott Heyward, the wealthy son of an oil tycoon who escapes an engagement to a gold digger in order to run to a resort in Florida where he trades places with water ski instructor Tom Wilson (Will Hutchins) and hopes to find a chick who really digs him as a man rather than as a figurative ATM machine.

Featuring a visibly bored Presley whose weight ballooned roughly thirty pounds during the time of Clambake, which viewers notice onscreen as the man – going through the motions singing songs with a smile on his face – unfortunately never seems comfortable in either his own body or with the weak screenplay.

However, the film is nonetheless salvaged slightly by a few cute numbers including one he shares with a group of children on a playground and a perky Shelley Fabares who looks like she’s been given the Elvis makeover as a dead-ringer for then-wife Priscilla Presley.

Flaming Star (1960)

Returning to the genre that kick-started his career in Love Me Tender, Presley takes on one of the roles previously considered by Twentieth Century Fox for Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra in this devastating western that features a strong turn by our lead in his prime, working for the man who would later direct Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, filmmaker Don Siegel.

Atypical for an Elvis movie as it features only two songs – the title track over the opening credits and one that plays near the movie’s beginning – and doesn’t concern itself with having Presley chase any girls or vice versa, Flaming Star takes a stark look at race relations and the prejudicial hate that can be bred from violence after the local Kiowa Indian tribe begins gunning down the locals to take back their land.

As the half Indian/half white son of a Kiowa mother (Dolores del Rio) and her Anglo Texan husband (John McIntire), Elvis’s twenty-year old Pacer Burton finds that unlike his 100% white brother and best friend Clint (Steve Forrest), he isn’t accepted fully on either side of the conflict. But when the local Kiowa chief demands that Pacer ride with him against his neighbors or his family’s lives will be threatened and their community’s war bursts onto their previously peaceful property, Pacer must take sides for the sake of his family.

While Flaming Star suffers from a slightly confusing and lengthy set-up that finds viewers trying to decipher who’s who among far too many characters, once it settles in, the movie, based on Clair Huffaker’s book Flaming Lance becomes easily compelling even if you’re able to foreshadow the bloody conclusion long before it reaches its halfway point.

Although it wasn’t nearly as big of a hit with Presley’s fans as the silly musical romantic comedies that he loathed making, it does prove his charisma as an actor in one of his rarer straight man roles that’s effective enough to make you wonder what Presley could’ve accomplished if he would’ve been given the far more serious material he craved that was reserved for Flaming’s original choice for leading man—Marlon Brando.

Follow That Dream (1961)

Unlike the Florida set but Hollywood shot Clambake, this underrated Elvis classic was filmed entirely on location in the sunshine state, which is especially beneficial considering the fact that aside from one pivotal sequence set in a courtroom, roughly 80% of the movie takes place out in the ocean air.

Although contemporary viewers might be apt to compare the movie to the ‘60s series The Beverly Hillbillies, Follow That Dream drew inspiration from Richard P. Powell’s novel Pioneer, Go Home!.

The film centers on an unorthodox family headed up by government scamming Pop Kwimper (Arthur O’Connell) and his army veteran son Toby (Presley) who, along with Pop’s multiple adopted children have been living gloriously off of the system for years before a determined highway supervisor city official decides to make it his business to run the homesteaders off of an unincorporated, legally off-the-books stretch of beach property they claim as their own.

When Toby uses his standard defense mechanism of reciting multiplication tables to attractive women to ward actress Joanna Moore’s sex-crazed social welfare worker sent after the Kwimpers, the jilted woman fights back even harder in trying to break up the unusual family unit.

And even though Presley is forced to play yet another none-too-bright country boy whose polite charm became a character typecast trademark throughout his career, he excels in doing just that in this unexpectedly funny, offbeat charmer that offered much more substance than teen idol sex appeal that celebrates unorthodox families and the idea that love can be thicker than blood.

Frankie and Johnny (1966)

The showiest title contained in the seven disc Elvis 75th Birthday Collection finds Elvis Presley and actress Donna Douglas as our eponymous lovebirds—two performers on a riverboat cruise who find their relationship tested by Presley’s addiction to the roulette wheel.

Advised by a gypsy fortune teller that he’ll find great fortune and better luck with a redheaded stranger, Presley’s Johnny and his piano playing sidekick Cully (Harry Morgan) keep a lookout for the woman who will end Johnny’s losing streak. But when the next redhead to cross his path is none other than the captain’s girl, the sultry Nellie Bly (Nancy Kovack), Johnny finds he has much more to contend with than just his gal Frankie.

And after his obsession with gambling and blind adherence to lady luck threatens to get in the way of their success as both a couple and entertainers when a big music publisher joins the cruise specifically to catch their infamous “Frankie and Johnny” act, complete with gunplay and a love triangle that Frankie worries is more fact than fiction.

A quintessential Elvis movie with some terrific show-stopping numbers and the type of predictable romantic comedy plot-line you traditionally find in musical dinner theatre stage shows, while the King doesn’t have nearly enough to do to keep you interested for the entirety of the running time, it’s still one of the better manufactured pieces Hollywood and Colonel Tom Parker cooked up for the popular singing star.

Kid Galahad (1962)

Elvis Presley had pretty big boxing gloves to fill when he stepped into the ring for this remake of the 1937 movie starring Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis. Fresh out of the Army and dead broke after a crap game went south, Walter Gulick (Presley) returns to the Catskills resort community of Cream Valley where he was born.

Hoping to scrape up enough dough to open up his own garage as a mechanic, we soon learn that serviceman Gulick is doubly handy with his fists when, in between fixing cars he handily knocks out a local boxing favorite when he fills in as a sparring partner.

Worried that knocking the champ down meant he lost his chance at the five dollar payday, Gulick learns he couldn’t have been more wrong as the manipulative, indebted resort owner Willy Grogan (Gig Young) soon decides to take the man under his wing along with trainer Charles Bronson in order to cash in on his penchant for punching.

Building in some satisfying subplots concerning the love interests in both Grogan and Gulick’s lives (played by Lola Albright and Joan Blackman respectively) and a grittier more violent attitude with more than its fair share of bloodshed for an Elvis movie thanks to Walking Tall and veteran film noir director Phil Karlson, Galahad which is often considered to be one of Presley’s stronger works doesn’t fail to disappoint on DVD.

While he still has to break out in song early on in the picture, the role of the chivalrous natural fighter dubbed Galahad because of his attitude towards standing up for women seems like an ideal fit for the charismatic star and even though his plotline isn’t nearly as strong as the one surrounding the unscrupulous Grogan, Kid Galahad offers you the refreshing chance to watch the King mix it up a little both in the ring and onscreen.

Love Me Tender (1956)

Loaned out by Paramount head Hal Wallis to Twentieth Century Fox when the studio couldn’t find a project that was deemed suitable enough to become Presley’s first film, Elvis took a backseat to lead performer Richard Egan as the youngest Reno brother who tended to the ranch, his mother and Egan’s former sweetheart Cathy (Debra Paget) while his three older brothers went off to fight for the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Arriving just one year after RKO Radio Pictures released their own more authentic interpretation of the Reno Brothers story in Rage at Dawn, Love Me Tender which was renamed to coincide with Presley’s chart-topping, record-breaking Gold record single of the same name nonetheless usurped Rage as the more popular tale thanks to its cinematic introduction of Elvis Presley to moviegoers around the world.

Admittedly Presley’s trademark ‘50s swagger and macho hip-swiveling was decidedly out-of-place during his onscreen musical performances. However, Presley still manages to turn in a fine portrayal of the brother left behind who, after receiving word that his brothers were killed in battle, marries Cathy only for all of the Reno men to return not just to Vance’s hidden heartbreak but with a secret of their own in the form of stolen Union Army funds they’d robbed under orders but neglected to give back once they learned too late that the war had ended.

Proving his box office potential – even in a black and white period western with an unhappy ending – Love Me Tender became an excellent cinematic springboard for Presley that may have found him tackling more serious roles, had his stint in the army and then return to the good graces of fans hearts in forgettable film fluff not been in the cards.

Still as it stands, Robert D. Webb and Stanley Hough’s Tender makes a fine western with some tense action sequences that help you overlook the fact that the character of Clint’s behavioral shift happens far too rapidly to be believed in the slightly unsatisfying conclusion of an otherwise above average debut.

Wild in the Country (1961)

Arguably the closest that Elvis Presley ever got to starring in a Tennessee Williams play or film adaptation opposite his movie heroes who had studied with Lee Strasberg at his oft-cited dream school of the Actor’s Studio, How Green Was My Valley scripter Phillip Dunne stepped behind the camera to direct the King in this overlooked, compelling drama penned by famed playwright and Sweet Smell of Success scribe Clifford Odets.

Using J.R. Salamanca’s novel as the basis for this tale of a juvenile delinquent with a violent temper, Odets manages to give Presley the kind of multilayered role he’d never receive again as at times, Wild in the Country seems tailor-made for the musician right down to the man’s obsessive dedication to his deceased mother with whom he shared an especially close bond and also his deeply held religious beliefs.

Having nearly killed his brother in a brawl at the start of the picture, Presley is taken in by his mother’s sleazy tonic selling cousin who hopes that his slutty daughter (Tuesday Weld) can seduce him into marrying her and therefore giving her bastard child a last name.

As part of his agreement not to wind up detained, Presley tries to avoid Weld’s trappings by staying true to his sweet girlfriend Betty Lee (Millie Perkins) and going to see the town psychologist Irene Sperry (Hope Lange) who encourages Presley’s Glenn Tyler to explore his literary ambitions as a writer.

Worried that he only has two roads to choose from on opposite ends of the spectrum of good and evil that are embodied by the two very different young women in his life and the man he becomes around them, Glenn’s in for a major shock when he discovers with Irene’s help that he may have a third opportunity for a future on his own, thanks to his raw talent as a writer.

A richly complex love story filled with strong portrayals by not only Presley but its trio of talented beauties in particular, while Wild in the Country does suffer a little from its overly melodramatic and rather lengthy third act, it’s still an unexpectedly moving and surprisingly effective picture that once again alludes to greater depth in its star than he would encounter in his bigger money-makers like this film’s follow up Blue Hawaii.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.