If anyone likes this movie, that’s a steal at this price - the picture quality and audio on the 4K are outstanding.
Now days, those 8 tracks would be worth a fortune..... OK maybe not ... but .... the gas would definitely be worth a fortune.
It's a pretty good movie about Elvis. The movie does have its flaws. The first flaw is that the movie very quickly mentions that gospel music was influential in Elvis' musical development but doesn't go any further in that direction. The second gripe is with the over the top "reenactments". It leaves the impression that Elvis was only controversial with racist southerners. I could see that producers didn't understand the whole dynamic of 1950's older southerners and Elvis even when I was a kid and saw the movie. The actual Elvis footage is good and a lot of it had never been released before in 1981. The soundtrack album is one of my favorites.
In a lot of ways it's sort of the Elvis version of Anthology. Also it has two versions, the near 4 hour TV version and the two hour theatrical version. Only the feature is stereo unfortunately, but both are in the WB DVD.
I haven't being doing my rewatch, so I'll just relay my thoughts on what I remember. I think I've said this, but I'll go ahead and say I found the movies very enjoyable overall. I think I preferred the ones where the songs didn't fill forced in. The end of Tickle Me felt like a Scooby-Doo episode to me. Double Trouble seemed like the plot was all over the place. It didn't seem to know what genre it was. We've got inept jewel thieves and an assassin following the main characters. We've got slapstick cops and car chase. We've got a boat captain wanting to blow up this ship for whatever reason. Change of Habit was more a film for Mary Tyler Moore than Elvis. The band in Girl Happy didn't have much to do at all. They were just there as a response to A Hard Day's Night. That's pretty much all that stood out to me.
Tickle Me was my favorite Elvis movie when it came out. Now I was 7 years old at the time so maybe it's not a good thing that such a young kid liked it, but we saw it multiple times. It was just scary enough for a young kid in the early 60's with the Haunted Hotel scenes and monster mask wearing bad guys.
I was talking w/a friend of mine the other day about Elvis’ Christmas records and he said that he was surprised by the fact that Elvis never did a Christmas movie and I must say that was kind of surprised about that too. I think that would have been an interesting concept.
I've said this before, but that would be one of the Colonel's biggest blunders. A decent Christmas movie would be a standard shown every year, especially if it was made to a little better standard like the earlier films. Maybe Elvis is a ski instructor and it's set at a ski resort, and he doubles as the nighttime entertainment in the lodge. Classic
Just no. this is the 60s. A financial loss or minimal gain. No second run chance (Xmas films don't do well in January), and it would be on TV a year or so later. Parker wanted the 68 Special to be a Christmas show. Pass.
That's BINDER boy! He is a GOD! He single handedly brought Elvis back from the dead. Or at least bad movies.
They were making movies anyway. You don't think a decent Christmas movie wouldn't be better than Kissin Cousins or Harum Scarum? Sure we all wish he was recording great RnR records at that time and touring but that's not reality.
That is a pretty low bar there. Still wouldn't make money. Christmas movies are generally a losing proposition, and Elvis movies were not wildly popular by any stretch. A Christmas movie would be just another Elvis movie, but one that MIGHT get broken out or shown on TV once a year. And it could have been a stinker.
I watched Blue Hawaii (in 4K!) for the first time recently. I was a little taken aback at the sexual double entendres for a 1961 film, and more so the spanking he gave Ellie. Seriously WTF?
Speaking of "spankings" . . . JOHN WAYNE gave MAUREEN O'HARA a spanking in the 1963 Western "McClintock!". I don't think spankings were that unusual in '60s movies.
Of course it's a low bar but that's what we're dealing with. A decent Christmas movie with a decent budget would have been a huge upgrade over anything done after VLV. And it WOULD be played every year and likely would have been a soundtrack winner considering all of Elvis's Christmas releases doing well through the years
I received in the mails on Thursday a prehistoric ALLIED ARTISTS VIDEO CORP. VHS release of "Tickle Me". I already have one copy, but the one I found on eBay was in nice condition (better than the one I have). I believe that's the only 'Elvis' movie released on the long-gone Allied Artists Video label; they went bankrupt in September 1979 and I believe the company -- or what was left of it -- was bought up by Lorimar shortly thereafter.
