Thoughts on Elvis '60s soundtracks (and their movies!)

When and where did he say this?

 

The worst soundtrack LPs were Girl Happy, Kissin Cousins, Harum Scarum and Frankie And Johnny in my opinion. But the worst songs were Confidence, Old MacDonald, Queenie Wahine's Papaya, He's Your Uncle Not Your Dad, A Barefoot Ballad, A Dog's Life, Datin', Dominick, Signs Of The Zodiac, The Whiffenpoof Song, Violet, Yoga Is As Yoga Does, Yellow Rose Of Texas/Eyes Of Texas to name of few off the top of my head. As for the 4 50s soundtracks, I like only Love Me Tender, We're Gonna Move, Loving You and Mean Woman Blues from the first two; and all but Steadfast Loyal And True from the other two.

Not even including bonus tracks, you could make a pretty good album from the best of Spinout and Clambake (How Can You Lose What You Never Had was recorded for the movie and I would include it in my hybrid combo of these two albums).

In fact if one were to remove A Barefoot Ballad, I would not even put Kissin Cousins in the "worst soundtrack album" list. That is how much I hate that song! And I think Viva Las Vegas should have been a full fledged album.

 

In the context of Hollywood musicals (and Broadway musicals) going back to the thirties and forties, many of these songs make sense. They are there to drive the story along, or just provide a music interlude if it's been too long since the previous song. Many of these songs are not great pieces of songwriting, but they are as much a part of the movies as costumes, sets and props. The crew of some of these Elvis movies had previously worked on those older movies, too.

Very enjoyable singing and very enjoyable musicianship, but a sorry waste of talent. I blame that illegal alien Andreas van Kuijk (aka Col Tom Parker) for derailing what could have been an important period of artistic and personal growth for Elvis.

But I do enjoy those movies and those songs. They're entertainment, they just aren't great art.

 

And That's one of the biggest factors in Elvis' whole movie career; Colonel Thomas Parker. He saw "his boy" as his own private property, an ATM to be wound up and put to use no different from a circus performer (which I understand Parker was once a part of). Elvis' fans were treated no differently than the carnival customer trying to throw rings over the necks of the moving clowns. Rock 'n Roll was just this weird concept to him, and besides...hey, he worked hard to make "his boy" respectable to grandma & grandpa America, so excuse us while we write out this next scene where Elvis dances in a hula skirt with some orangutans! Now that's entertainin', Boy!

 

ilistentoallkinds, this is a very enjoyable thread. Thank you for starting it.
I have been working on a 1960's soundtrack compilation for a bunch of years and am still not certain of the final track listing, but it will be approximately 33 songs and 80 minutes.

 

I just picked up 15 Elvis 60s soundtrack lps for cheap (2 Euros an lp). I'm just a casual Elvis fan but will have fun trawling through this small bounty .

King Creole
G.I. Blues
Blue Hawaii
Kissin' Cousins
California Holiday
Roustabout
Girl Happy
Harem Holiday
Frankie and Johnny
Paradise, Hawaiian Style
Double Trouble
Speedway
Love Me Tender/Love In Las Vegas/Follow That Dream
Easy Come, Easy Go/Kid Galahad
Flaming Star

 

I must be the only fan of Harum Scarum. Sure it can be cheesy but I love its groovy-mid-60's-middle-eastern-cheesiness. And there's nothing that sinks to the level of Confidence or He's Your Uncle. Even the wonky mix with Elvis way too far out front works in this context.

The whole thing just clicks for me for whatever reason...maybe because I haven't seen the actual movie? Anyway it's probably my favorite of the 60's soundtracks(!)

 

Roustabout was a number 1 album for a week. It even beat out AHDN and The Beatles Story

Top 200 Albums

 

Caught a few minutes of Clambake on TCM the other day. I'm not familiar with much of Elvis' soundtrack material, but during the song "Confidence" I noticed that the vocal sounded very Un-Elvis. It didn't have a great deal of reverb and the singing sounded like it might have been a demo or a first take. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

 

I too am a fan of the "Harum Scarum" soundtrack, and the release of the FTD soundtrack a number
of years ago was a revelation. The masters sound better than ever before, but the sound quality of the
outtakes is stunning. Plus, Elvis and the band were in a great mood during the sessions, and really
went for a different sound well.
Case in point...the outtake of "Hey Little Girl" is a flat out rocker, unlike how it turned out in
the film. The band is hot, and Elvis' vocal is different and more hard edged. One of my favorite
film outtakes...and I've got them all.....

 

Yes, the movie is a lot worse than the soundtrack. There are some ok ballads especially Tender Feeling, but Barefoot Ballad is terrible on every level.

Elvis should have left the movies behind after Kissin' Cousins and focused solely on the music. He was not a good actor, imo and was never going to get the serious roles that he wanted.

 

Also, regarding the "Harum Scarum"album , I posted this clip of "Shake That Tambourine"
a few times already on the forum, but I still find it fascinating. It's from 2008, and
whoever the music director was of this vocal group, he was obviously a fan of more
obscure Elvis soundtracks. Plus it's really done well by them. Watch it if you've
never seen it.

 

I recently read that the TCB band convened at Sun studios for a secret project and started wondering what this could be. This lead me down a train of thought..... which Elvis songs could they possibly re-word without offending too many people! That made me think of the film songs.

The idea of re-working any of his songs is understandably horrific for many people, but it might be interesting if they could introduce people to some long forgotten songs or even improve on some arrangements.

It could be a fun idea if they took the most obscure film songs, only played Elvis' vocals to the musicians and told them to create a new arrangement!

 

F*** that s***! You don't have to give a hoot in hell how some smarty-pants judge your musical preferences. Apologies for cussing and a sincere thank you for your well-considered, nuanced OP. I truly enjoyed reading it - as well as the replies. Some nice choices and suggestions.

Currently spinning and enjoying Kid Galahad (and about half of Girls, Girls, Girls) ;-)

 

I suspect this is a phony quotation of the sort that proliferate these days on the internet. A quick search finds it cited frequently, but never with any source given.

 

Apocryphal, like quotes attributed to the "Lost Gospels'. It's all religion, and yoga truly IS as yoga does.
BTW let's hear it for "Easy Come Easy Go" which at least dares to allow female belly buttons.

 

I enjoy the title track from Change of Habit.

 

Woah! Too much! I nearly choked on my Mcvities caramel digestive!!

 

Oh, the movies...

First, I'd like to say that Elvis's movies are an area fraught with misconception. He did, in fact, make a handful of decent movies and he did work with a few great directors. In terms of value, I'd characterize them like this:

Very Good movies:

Flaming Star - this western, directed by the legendary Don Siegel (who made Clint Eastwood a star and gave us the immortal 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers), is the best evidence available of what a capable dramatic actor Elvis could be when given the chance.

Viva Las Vegas - Aside from Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Donen, George Sidney (who directed this film) was as great a musical filmmaker as the U.S. could offer, and VLV ranks among his best.

Loving You - This was Hal Kanter's first film as director, and while it's not exactly auteur-level, he made a pretty dang good movie. The musical sequences shine and are filmed with some imagination (which stands in stark contrast to the work of Norman Taurog), he's got some brooding-teenage Rebel Without A Cause inspired overtones, and a story that borrows from Elvis's biography.

Good Movies:

Jailhouse Rock, King Creole, Girl Happy - Jailhouse and Creole are essential Elvis films, and Girl Happy is a great sly parody of the Elvis film genre.

Likable Movies:

Love Me Tender, G.I. Blues, Blue Hawaii, Follow That Dream, Tickle Me, Clambake, Live a Little, Love a Little

Unwatchable 'Movies':

Wild In The Country - Phillip Dunne is really swinging for the fences with this one, but he just has no talent as a director. Laughably awful, and pretentious to boot.

Double Trouble - This remains the only Elvis movie that I have not been able to finish. Wow. If I'd gone to this one, I would have asked for my money back.

The rest of the movies I didn't mention are palatable, but ultimately forgettable, aside from a good song now and then. The biggest disappointment of the bunch is Kid Galahad, because Phil Karlson was a great little action movie director, but the constraints of the Elvis formula keep him from getting really invested in that film.

And contrary to popular belief, the biggest missed opportunity in Elvis's acting career was not A Star Is Born, which would up being an eminently mediocre film. His biggest missed opportunity was not getting to work with Nicholas Ray on The True Story of Jesse James. Ray, who directed James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, designed this film specifically with Elvis in mind. It was a sort of Rebel set in the west, with Elvis as Jesse. The filmmaker hoped to use the then subversive iconography of the new rock n' roll king to draw a parallel between the 'juvenile delinquents' of the 50's and the storied outlaws of the old west.

Ray was a visionary director, and this would have been a great film had he gotten to work with Elvis. As it happens, 20th century Fox didn't want to build a big budget film like Ray envisioned around a star they had on loan from Hal Wallis, so they stuck Elvis with B-movie quickster Richard Bare for Love Me Tender, and forced Ray to use one of their own stars as Jesse - Robert Wagner. Of course, Robert Wagner has about as much rebel cache as a hard-boiled egg. Because of the casting switch, Ray completely lost interest in the project and the film wound up being one of the most half-hearted and ineffectual efforts of Ray's career. Had Elvis's career started with a major film helmed by a great filmmaker like Nick Ray, the entire trajectory of his career in Hollywood would have been different.

Soundtracks...

The soundtracks from Elvis's first four films are as good as his non-soundtrack studio efforts, and some of the songs from Viva Las Vegas are even better than his non-soundtrack work from the same time period. My guilty pleasure Elvis album is Spinout, which runs the gamut from kooky fun to the sublime (RCA inexplicably chose to include Tomorrow Is a Long Time and I'll Remember You as bonus tracks).

As for the rest of the soundtracks, going through them is kind of like mining for gold. There can be a lot of worthless debris to sift through, but there are usually a couple of nuggets on each one, and the act of 'discovering' them can be fun. Should Elvis have been doing other things with his time? Certainly. But I would seriously miss cuts like 'Doin The Best I Can', 'Can't Help Falling In Love', 'In My Way'. 'Return to Sender', 'Relax', 'Little Egypt', 'Puppet on a String', (and the list can go on and on and on) had Elvis not recorded them.

I think you just have to take the movie era for what it is, a career diversion that went on a little too long and produced a mixed bag of results. I try my best to just enjoy the good parts of it and not get too bent out of shape about the bad, or hung up on 'what if' scenarios (tempting though they may be). Elvis had a great career. Imperfect? Sure, but everybody's is. Basically, the only way you can diminish what Elvis was able to achieve is to compare him to our dreams of Elvis in a perfect world. Nobody wins that comparison.

 

Easy Come, Easy Go was on TV last night and I watched this sequence, and have to agree, it's very bad.

 

I got the 20CD boxset „Perfect Movie Soundtrack Collection“ (Anesini mastering) for 20,-€. I always skipped the Elvis movie soundtracks but now I‘m happy with these albums. Still prefering his 70s material.

 

I'm a huge fan of the movies and I am at least tolerant of all of the songs, all of the songs that is apart from this monster with The Bride of Frankenstein herself...

Edit: Price.pittsburgh mentioned it earlier...

 

Remind me in future to look at the prior posts before posting myself...

 

I have never bothered with all the soundtrack albums, so may I call on your knowledge to compile your 15 track "best of" with songs approaching the quality that he found on "From Elvis In Memphis" (is that possible?).