1h 41min | Drama, Music, Musical | 11 November 1964 | Color, WS
Director: John Rich
Stars: Elvis Presley, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Freeman, Leif Erickson, Sue Ane Langdon, Pat Buttram.
Earl Barton ... stager: musical numbers
11 songs in the Soundtracks.
This one has more to it than other EP films, probably because BS takes it seriously.
It wasn't a coffee shop where EP was singing, it was a "tea house" that served booze to underage kids.
JF is no match for EP; she's too sweet here. I suppose that's what he "needs" to tame him, and he had no family to make him want to avoid domesticity.
The plot makes sense. EP is traveling to his next destination when cranky LE runs him off the road, destroying his guitar and badly damaging his bike. Repairs take a week, long enough for EP to get attached to the carnival owned by BS where LE works. But LE, who is JF's protective father, keeps harassing EP, so he quits to go to a bigger carnival. He makes a bunch of cash there, and comes back to help BS bail out her financial troubles (caused by a prior incident of LE's drunken carelessness). (There's more, but that's the gist.)
Unfortunately EP plays sullen again, but not downtrodden. He knows he's got enough talent to get a job wherever he wants to go, and he can fight well enough to take care of himself. He doesn't start fights just because someone looks at him funny, but he does come to the defense of someone in distress.
Favorite song: Little Egypt.
I'm mystified by EP going back and forth between Hal Wallis/Paramount and MGM. I wonder if he had a non-exclusive contract, or was loaned out.
Wallis-Hazen, distr. Paramount, dir. Rich; 7-
