Elvis Movie 50th Anniversary Pictorials: Fun in Acapulco – 1963

You can tell from the title of this post that I am a little late getting it out. Fun in Acapulco actually premiered in November 1963. So, 2014 will be a big year for 50th anniversary movie pictorials on ElvisBlog, with Kissin’ Cousins, Viva Las Vegas, and Roustabout coming up.

 

Movie Posters:

All of the posters have some variation of Elvis with his sombrero and colorful blanket, plus Ursula Andress in her bikini giving a looking-over-the-shoulder pose.

Here, both images are flipped

 

The other thing all of them have is the long shot of someone (presumably Elvis) diving off the cliff. Okay, let’s look at one more variation.

 

 

Shots from the Movie:

Here’s Elvis with his two leading ladies – Ursula Andress and Elsa Cardenas. I kind of liked the competition between these two to win their man.

 

This is Raoul, a street smart eight-year-old who functions as Elvis’ manager by getting him singing gigs and extracting maximum pay for them. Some have suggested that the screenwriters modeled Raoul’s tactics after those of Col. Parker. This was the second film in a row where Elvis had a kid as co-star, but I liked Raoul a lot more than five-year-old Sue-Lin in It Happened at the World’s Fair.

 

Here’s an interesting shot of Elvis and Ursula. Looks like he is admiring something about her.

 

Here’s another wet-body shot of them with something for the males in the audience to admire.

 

Elvis sang eleven songs in Fun in Acapulco – in nine different locations and wearing a different outfit for each one.

 

Lobby Cards:

For some reason, there were two different sets of lobby cards for Fun in Acapulco. Here are some that feature full size photos with no accompanying graphics.

Then, there is the set that incorporates the familiar poster images of Elvis and Ursula Andress.

 

 

 

 

Behind the Scenes Shots:

Here are four off-stage shots of Elvis and Ursula Andress. There don’t seem to be any shots of Elvis and Elsa Cardenas together.

 

 

 

 According to the book Elvis: His Life from A to Z, Ursula Andress “was once romantically linked to Elvis.” Hmmm. What do you think?

 

Here are Elvis and Alejandro Rey practicing their fight scene. In the movie, it occurs in a hotel lobby and they are fully clothed.

 

Elvis’ big break-through moment in the film comes when he conquers his fears and dives off a 136 foot cliff into the ocean. Here is how they filmed him climbing up the cliff.

 

Foreign Posters:

This Spanish poster has the familiar Elvis image, but Ursula Andress is missing. Instead, we get a black-and-white cut-out of Elvis and Elsa Cardenas, his Hispanic co-star.

Here’s another Spanish poster with a totally different concept.

 

Yet another different concept for this German poster.

 

This Mexican poster is loaded with a total of seven images, although it is strange that the pair of Elvis-and-girlfriend shots aren’t in color.

Elvis and Aggressive Teenage Girls:

 

The movie starts with Elvis working on a yacht, and the owner’s daughter makes a move on him. Elvis spurns her advances, and she gets revenge by lying about him and getting him in trouble. If this sounds familiar, it is. Remember these scenes from Loving You and Blue Hawaii?

 

 

 

The Kiss:

Following tradition, this movie pictorial will end with a photo of Elvis kissing his love-interest.

 

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