Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992 TAG: 9203030093
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I'd just started college when his first one, "Love Me Tender," came out in 1956 and joined other students in hooting his acting ability, or lack of it. But when I saw him more or less play himself in "Loving You" the following year, and get his first screen kiss (from a groupie), I was impressed enough to go see it again.
I missed "Jailhouse Rock" and "King Creole" but, for some reason, recall the previews more vividly than many entire films I've sat through. "G.I. Blues" (1963) sticks with me mainly because it was about the time I entered the Army, and served under a sergeant whose claim to fame was having been Elvis' sergeant.
Elvis had bad luck with Westerns like "Love Me Tender" and "Flaming Star" (1960): he didn't get the girl or even survive the picture. I have blurred memories of seeing "Wild in the Country," "Blue Hawaii" and maybe "Follow That Dream," but didn't really enjoy another one until the remake of "Kid Galahad" (1962), in which Elvis played Wayne Morris' boxer role and had people like Gig Young and Charles Bronson in his corner (it was also Ed Asner's first film).
Of the rest of his more than 30 movies, I went to see only two others, both in 1965 although, as though by osmosis, I seem to know things about many others. "Girl Happy" was the last film I saw as a bachelor or without the woman I would marry the next year, but for my money it had two of most hilarious moments of them all: one when Elvis is romancing Shelley Fabares and Mary Ann Mobley simultaneously in adjacent rooms and casually drops a full martini glass in his coat pocket while running between them, and another when he disguises himself as a woman with the screechiest voice you ever heard. "Harum Scarum," which I saw with my future bride, was fun with Elvis battling Middle East intrigue.
Later, Maxine and I would see "Fun in Acapulco" on TV with Elvis and James Bond girl Ursula Andress, and "Change of Habit" with Elvis as a doctor and Mary Tyler Moore as a nun! I didn't realize until looking up information on the films that "Change," in 1969 (the year men landed on the moon and we had our first child), was his last.
I suppose I link them with good times in my life. There are worse legacies an entertainer could leave.
by CNB