Clever entrepreneurs keep coming up with unique ways to tap into the dedicated Elvis fan market. A nifty one comes from GoodTimes Home Video: a 90 minute collection of the trailers for all 33 Elvis feature films, titled “Elvis In The Movies.”
It’s kind of neat to watch the string of three-minute coming-attractions hyping each new Elvis movie, in sequence. Sometimes, they would start with an attention-catching phrase flashing across the screen, but more often, they began with a booming announcer voice-over extolling some element of the movie.
Along with snippets of film, these written or spoken teasers gave the fans an idea of what the movie was about. Here they are in chronological order.
His first great motion picture. Out of the great Southwest comes the sensational adventure of the notorious Reno brothers and the girl they fought over.
The first big, modern musical built around the fiery personality of Elvis Presley. Follow him through the barnstorming days, and the one night stands, the big moment when girls discover him — and he discovers girls.
Elvis is back and so is his biggest movie hit… The astounding success story of this rebel with a voice that rocked the world.
They’ve crowned a new king on the street where jazz was born. Now he crowns his meteoric rise to fame with a fiery burst of dramatic power.
The red, white and blue show of the year. It’s a three day pass at those frolicking frauleins, but the dancing darling who blocks every pass has all the guys in a spin — and guess who the boys are betting on to break through her defenses.
The white man’s song was on his lips, but an Indian war-cry was in his heart, as he is torn between two loyalties, and he fought to save them both.
Elvis Presley sings songs of love to Hope Lang, songs of love to Tuesday Weld, songs of love to Millie Perkins. And wherever Elvis goes, excitement follows. Tense, torrid, tempestuous.
Elvis as your personal guide to America’s exotic Eden, our Polynesian paradise. He hits the beach with the most luscious armful of delight on the island.
Follow that car. It’s headed toward this theater, loaded with the most happy-go-lucky group of wanderers who ever came down the pike chasing after the rainbow.
It’s a knockout. It’s a honey of a picture, filled with that Elvis kind of action, that Elvis kind of love.
Skipper Elvis serenades a port full of girls, girls, girls. The greatest of all Elvis Presley musicals with a whole album full of brand new songs.
Here, against the panorama of one ot the most glamorous and exciting events of recent times, is everything that made Elvis Presley one of the greatest entertainment stars in the world.
It’s Elvis on fire with a Latin lilt, Latin love, Latin rhythm.
There’s gals in them thar hills, and look who’s driving them wild. The two greatest lovers in the Great Smokies.
The excitement when these two let themselves go on a wild and woolly whirl through Funtown, USA. A jumpin’ jackpot of melody.
Rambling, roving, restless, reckless. Elvis, getting the chicks all worked up, but cutting loose from any dolly that can tie him down.
… when Elvis invades the land of the bikinis on those spring vacation revels. And thousands of college kids go, go, go.
Yes, it’s Elvis as a swinging, singing cowboy. A rodeo ridin’, bronco bustin’ champ, whose job is wrangling fillies on a dude ranch.
Across the burning sands rides a dauntless stranger, meeting every challenge with clashing swords and bare-handed daring.
Here comes the King of the Mississippi… in a story that shows… that there ain’t no good in men.
Running wild as a copter flyboy with more co-pilots than he can handle.
It’s Elvis swinging. It’s Elvis singing. It’s Elvis racing. With his foot on the gas — and no breaks on the fun.
Flip-out with Elvis. Elvis making the scene, and he’s with some of the most luscious lovelies that ever filled out a bikini. Elvis rockin’ and sockin’ on the waterfront.
Elvis is in trouble, big trouble. Elvis is on his way. He’s off to mod London and swinging Europe — and mystery.
It’s Elvis cooking up a storm of entertainment. Elvis throws the wildest beach party since they invented the bikini and the beat.
Now and again, the West produces a man who stands apart from the crowd. Noble as the valley, rugged as the rocks, a man of action who makes an unforgettable impact. Joe Lightcloud is such a man ???
He’s a high flying stock car jockey with a room full of trophies. Elvis has a one-track mind and a winning streak that couldn’t be broken, until he found a gorgeous, groovy government agent in his slip-stream.
It’s a blow-up, it’s a blast. A love affair between a photographer, his pussycat, her playboy, and a pooch.
A different kind of a killer, a different kind of a man. On his neck he wore the brand of a killer, on his hip he wore vengeance.
It’s Elvis Presley. He’s the boss, boss-man of a groovy traveling tent show. It’s a little wicked and wild, weird and wacky — wallopin’ way-out entertainment.
Elvis Presley, in the change of pace roll as a doctor doing his best to keep the lid on a red-hot ghetto.
I noticed a few things as I compiled this list.
Groovy was used a couple of times, and that is not a word we would think of today to describe Elvis. However, these movies are from the 60s, and groovy was used a lot in those times.
Elvis was described as fiery twice, including, “fiery burst of dramatic power” in King Creole. That’s a good line.
Bikini was used in three trailers, but it could easily have been in more. They could have condensed down the tag for Clambake and just said: Bikinis !!!
I’m a little surprised they used this line in Frankie and Johnny: “in a story that shows there ain’t no good in men.” What type audience were they trying to attract with that?
I am a big fan of alliterations, such as “tense, torrid, tempestuous” in Wild in the Country.
Here are some other good ones:
“wild and wooly whirl” in Viva Las Vegas.
“rambling, roving, restless, reckless” in Roustabout.
‘gorgeous, groovy government agent” in Speedway.
“a little wicked and wild, weird and wacky — wallopin’ way-out entertainment” from The Trouble with Girls.
And the Alliteration Grand Champion comes from Live A little, Love A Little:
“A photographer, his pussycat, her playboy, and a pooch…. All about passion, punches, pleasure, pandemonium.”
Wow. An eight-word alliteration. That’s pretty hard to do.
Here’s a challenge for you. Come up with an Elvis alliteration and post it on Comments. The first one I thought up was easy, early Elvis, and that’s terrible. See if you can do better.
© 2018 Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister All Rights Reserved www.ElvisBlog.net
Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
ElvisBlog Mini-Nuggets # 24
I’m sure most of you readers are aware of all the media hype for the latest version of the movie A Star Is Born. This one pairs up Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga (or Stefani Germanotta, her real name, as listed on the above poster).
How many of you also know that Elvis was offered the male lead in the 1976 version?
According to the definitive book ELVIS – His Life from A to Z, “Barbra Streisand wanted to costar with Elvis, in what would have been his finest screen role. But an agreement couldn’t be reached with Colonel Parker, who wanted one million dollars plus top billing for Elvis, rather than to settle for a percentage of the movie’s gross.”
So Kris Kristofferson got the role.
Probably not one of Col. Parker’s best moves.
Jerry Seinfeld in an Elvis Jumpsuit:
Do you save old magazines with good intentions to read them again? I’m bad that way, but lately I’m culling out anything I can use on ElvisBlog, and throwing the rest away. Here’s the cover of the September 22, 1994 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. It may be hard to tell in the small photo here, but the full-sized cover shows this is an expensive original design that probably weighs 40 pounds like some of Elvis’ jumpsuits did. And his attempt at an Elvis lip curl is really lame
This is a different pose that accompanies the lengthy article celebrating the end of Jerry Seinfeld’s twelve-year run on the TV show Seinfeld. There is no mention of the jumpsuit in the article, so it must be just to emphasize the subtitle on the magazine cover: The King of Prime Time Comedy.
There was one other picture of interest in this magazine.
Supposedly, this was the first photograph of Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson after they were married in 1994.
Here are pictures of some other showbiz folks dressed up in Elvis jumpsuits.
The guy in the middle is Nathan Fillion In an episode of Castle. Check out the twin Elvi’s with matching American Eagle jumpsuits and white scarfs on each side. Does anybody know what the storyline was to have Fillion dressed up like this?
Who was Elvis’ Favorite Auto Mechanic?
Earlier this week I got an email from an ElvisBlog reader in Spokane who makes and collects guitars. After negotiating on the phone to buy a double-neck guitar, he went to pick it up.
It turned out the owner also had many other guitars, including one he says he got from Elvis. It is an electric guitar with the same inlay as the acoustic guitar below.
The man claims to have been Elvis’ go-to automobile mechanic for many years up until Elvis’ death.
This is the story the ElvisBlog reader relates about the mechanic, who we will call Al for now.
‘Elvis’ car broke down on his way to Tahoe. Al was a mechanic at a local car repair place. His boss asked if he could put a new motor in this Lincoln, and he agreed to work all night so Elvis could leave in the morning. Well, I guess he finished around 3 AM, and a guy came to pick up the car, but they started drinking beer and the guy was too drunk to drive.
“Meantime Elvis shows up, thanks the guy, asks Al’s boss if he could offer Al a job, to which Al said yes, and thus became his mechanic for years. Elvis would have his private plane pick him up and fly him to his various places like Bel Air, Memphis and I think he said Florida, where he had vehicles and Al would make sure they were tuned up and ready to go. He got paid $2400 a month which he says was really good money back in the sixties/seventies. He became really good friends with Priscilla and Lisa Marie, and he claimed he was like an uncle to Lisa.”
When the collector got to Al’s house for the double-neck, he found a very protective/reclusive type old man.
“He lets me in and I noticed he is packing a gun on his hip. He finally started to loosen up a bit after he realized I truly enjoy guitars and that’s when all the stories started coming forth. Really want to believe him but … I have some doubts.”
The story goes that Elvis gave Al the electric guitar with the fancy neck inlay. It was a movie prop although it really played. Elvis also gave him a gold album award, photos, and lots of other stuff.
The guitar collector says, “It all sounds really cool, but there is that slight twinkle of doubt that is bothering me.” He hopes there is someone out there who knows about a car mechanic/guitar collector with strong connections to Elvis, and has asked my help.
So, if anyone is familiar with who worked on Elvis’ vehicles from late 60s until Elvis’ death, please reply on Comments and add some credence to this story about Elvis’ favorite auto mechanic.
© 2018 Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister All Rights Reserved www.ElvisBlog.net
Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
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Posted in ELVIS and OTHER STARS, ELVIS COMMENTARY MINI-NUGGETS, FRIENDS of ELVIS, IMAGES, Main Page, MOVIES
Tagged Elvis - A Star is Born, Elvis Auto Mechanis, ElvisBlog Mini-Nuggets, stars in Elvis Jumpsuits