In my opinion, this photo represents the only thing in Harum Scarum to justify watching it. Certainly it is not the plot, acting, songs, or the action scenes. No, it is the constant parade of scantily-clad lovelies. They come in many varieties – a princess, a damsel in distress, a villain, these slave girls (they dress nice for slaves, don’t they?), and three belly dancers.
Harum Scarum was Elvis’ nineteenth movie, and it premiered on November 24, 1965.
There are some silly Elvis movies that I enjoy watching, Tickle Me, Kissin’ Cousins, Live A Little to name a few. But Harum Scarum really isn’t that much fun and strains all creditability. For example, Elvis has been drugged and whisked off by the bad guys and where does he wake up? Not in a prison cell, but surrounded by the beauties above. Even worse, he sings a whole song to them before he realizes he’s not dreaming and says, “Hey, you’re real.”
Here’s the device they used to start the film – a movie within a movie. That’s Elvis fighting a bad guy in Arabian Nights type movie being shown to all the important people of the kingdom of Babelstan. After Elvis beats off the villains, he has to battle a leopard. No problem. He gives it just one karate chop and kills it.
Sorry for the blurry shot, but that leopard was moving fast.
Anyway, there were some real villains in that audience viewing the movie, and they somehow get the idea that the American actor has amazingly talented killing hands for real. And because they believe he can get access to the king, they decide to blackmail him to “eliminate a person of great Importance.”
Let’s go back to that damsel in distress in the photo above for a moment.
Once he rescues her, she plants a kiss on him. In my opinion, this is the best on-screen kiss Elvis ever did. Long, sensuous lip-lock. Ladies, check it out. It happens early, so you don’t have to watch a lot of the movie to see it.
One way I amuse myself when watching Elvis’ bad movies is looking for cameo appearances by his Memphis Mafia buddies. Can you spot Sonny West in the back row?
Here’s Red West playing one of the bad guys known as the Assassins. He’s in a number of scenes.
This guy is a conniving marketplace thief who ends up helping Elvis beat the Assassins. However, the more scenes he was in, the more I wished he’d go away. I only added this screen grab because he looks obsessed with the banana and Elvis seems amused. Feel free to add your own caption to the picture.
Another cinematic highlight staring Elvis and this guy.
Elvis does a bunch of Karate chops throughout the movie, but never kills anybody. He says his hits will put them out of commission for about an hour. Guess he does have pretty talented hands after all.
This is lovely villian Aishah played by Fran Jeffries. Elvis didn’t waste any time putting a move on her after she came out of the tent.
But she tricked him and knocked him out with drugged wine. At least he got in a kiss before he keeled over (She was the second of four women Elvis kissed in the film. Might be a record number).
Here’s Elvis singing a song in prison. Of course, there was background music from that talented invisible band that shows up in so many Elvis movies. I’ve got to compile a list of all the movies where Elvis ended up in jail. Let’s see: Jailhouse Rock, Girl Happy, Blue Hawaii, and probably some others I can’t think of.
These are the three belly dancers mentioned above. They were actually in a number of non-dancing scenes, a nice distraction when the plot got lame.
This little girl also did a belly dance for Elvis. I wish they had cut the scene. It was totally inappropriate and cringe worthy.
I like this shot of Elvis. He is leading a motley crew of folks taking on the Assassins, and he giving directions on what everybody should do.
We will finish this pictorial with shots of Elvis’ love interest, Princess Shalimar, played by Mary Ann Mobley. This is when she first laid eyes on Elvis. As you can see, she was most impressed. They talked for one minute and thirty-seven seconds of screen time, and then rode horses to the Pool of Omar without speaking. Then he spent two minutes singing to her followed by a kiss and a few more seconds of dialog. That’s all it took – they were both in love.
Earlier in the movie, Elvis sang to five women while thinking he was asleep, but here we have the Princess gazing into a pool and not only seeing Elvis but hearing him sing. Mystical stuff for sure.
Mary Ann Mobley is so sweet and composed during the whole movie, except for this scene. Here she is angry with Elvis because she thinks he is out to harm her father the king. I like her in both movies she made with Elvis, but I much prefer the aggressive hottie she played in Girl Happy, even though she lost Elvis to Shelly Fabares.
But in Harum Scarum, she gets her man, and then the movie ends with this.
© 2015 Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister All Rights Reserved www.ElvisBlog.net
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Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.
ElvisBlog Mini-Nuggets #19
We haven’t done Mini-Nuggets since March 2014, but Elvis’ 80th birthday has provided some short subjects to report.
Record Number of Hits for ElvisBlog:
On January 1, I checked Google Analytics to see how well ElvisBlog did for the year. 147,000 people (users) visited the site, resulting in 279,991 pageviews (hits). That’s an average of 2,800 users a week, a gain of 30% over the 2013 results. Definitely a good year.
Which makes the results in the graphic above even more remarkable. Yesterday, on what would have been Elvis’ 80th birthday, ElvisBlog had nearly 2,600 people visit the site. Wow. I hope I’m still around to see the results on Elvis’ 100th birthday.
Elvis’ Movie Costars Pass Away:
When time permits, we will take a deeper look at two late actresses who appeared with films with Elvis. Mary Ann Mobley (Girl Happy, Harum Scarum) died on December 19, 2014.
Donna Douglas (Frankie and Johnny) passed away on New Year’s Day, 2015.
Elvis’ leading ladies have been a staple for print and video interviews about him for decades. Has there ever been an Elvis Week without one or two of them being “Special Guests” for talks, panel discussions, and autograph sessions?
Well, the list is getting short, and you have to wonder what authors, journalists and EPE will do when Elvis’ female costars are all gone. Now we have a hint. In celebration of Elvis 80th birthday, an article in the Boone, NC Mountain Times featured an interview with Donna Butterworth who was ten-years-old when she appeared with Elvis in Paradise, Hawaiian Style. You are going to see more of this.
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Peanut Butter ‘N Banana Ice Cream:
I received an email from the PR firm representing Baskin-Robbins telling me about their new flavor to celebrate Elvis’ 80th Birthday. It will be available for the entire month of January, and it is described as banana-flavored ice cream with a chunky peanut butter ribbon. They are sending me two $31 gift cards – one to use to sample it and write a review. I expect to like it, but I did have a bad experience at Elvis Week 2007 when I tried peanut butter and banana coffee, and it was lame.
The other gift card will be offered as the prize in an Elvis Caption Contest which I will post in a couple of days.
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The Elvis Auction at Graceland:
The auction last night was a huge success, highlighted by the 1953 acetate of Elvis’ first recorded songs “My Happiness”/”That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” The pre-auction estimate was for $75-100,000, but it went for $300,000! That’s got to be the highest priced record ever. Let’s see a record by Michael Jackson, or the Beatles, or Mariah Carey top that.
There were 67 items up for auction, so it will take two or three blogs to cover all the interesting elements of this Elvis 80th birthday event, and I’ll get them posted as soon as possible.
© 2014 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 AUCTIONS / MEMORABILIA, ELVIS COMMENTARY MINI-NUGGETS, ELVISBLOG NEWS, HOLIDAY GREETINGS TO ELVIS, NEWS, PRODUCTS BASED ON ELVIS
Tagged Auction at Graceland, Donna Douglas, Elvis auctions, Google Analytics, Mary Ann Mobley, Peanut Butter and Banana