Elvis

1979

Not Rated

It’s been quite a while since our last movie review, but I’m glad I finally watched this one all the way through. Since the new Elvis biopic is coming out in just 2 weeks, I wanted to watch the first one. I only saw clips of this one on YouTube in the past before watching it fully last week. I’ve had the movie in my collection for quite a while, but it’s been sitting on my shelf. The movie was a TV special and it never made the theaters. There have been more movies and other films telling the life of the King of Rock n’ Roll, but like I said, this was the first one ever. It hit the ABC airwaves just 18 months after his passing. With that little intro out of the way, I’ll not waste any more time, let’s dive in.

There’s really not a lot to share out of the ordinary here. It is the tale of the life of Elvis Presley (Kurt Russell). Starting at age 10, it shows Elvis’s humble beginnings. He grew up poor and one Christmas, his parents got him a guitar. He wanted a bicycle, but he was content with the instrument. Even as a child, Elvis felt that there was a missing piece in his life. His twin brother was stillborn and ever since he knew that, he felt he had a connection with him somehow. This is reflected in the film a handful of times. As he gets older, he is seemingly awkward and different from the rest of the kids his age. His clothing and style, including his hair are different from the rest and is teased about it, that is, until he performed on stage for the first time.

He starts to create a buzz around town and as he is trying to decide what to do with his life, he starts a job driving a truck, but gives music a try. He walks into Sun Records to record a couple songs for his mother (Shelley Winters) to surprise her and the rest is history. The film shows him becoming a local celebrity, starting his partnership will Col. Tom Parker (Pat Hingle). His undying love for his mother and how her passing affected his life. It showed him in the Army, leaving the Army and starting a relationship with his future wife, Priscilla (Season Hubley). The connection and almost immediate disconnect between the two and really just the struggles of being the biggest star in the world. It also shows how his relationships with the people closest to him were harmed in the process. The story stops in or around 1970/71 and the focus that the film starts with, and basically ends with, was his big performance at the International in Las Vegas.

This was a pretty simple life breakdown of Elvis, but I really didn’t need to go into too much detail with it because like my synopsis, the film was basically a touch and go career breakdown of Elvis. Let me start with the cast. It was directed by a very famous director now, but at the time, he was just getting started. It was John Carpenter. Yes, the same John Carpenter that directed the cult classic Halloween films among other things. He has obviously made a name for himself in the horror genre, but this was a nice change for him, and it was viewed as such at the time as well. Kurt Russell played the role of the King himself and I thought did a great job. I didn’t think he looked a lot like him in the representation of Elvis when he was around 16-19, but once the 60’s part of the film kicked in, he looked identical to him. I had to do a double take a couple times. His mannerisms were spot on and in a lot of ways, the things he said in casual conversations sounded exactly like Elvis. I think he has done the best Elvis impersonation in any film, without a doubt. Russell did all of the dialogue parts but did none of the singing. Ronnie McDowell performed all of Elvis’s songs and I thought he did a good job. Some of them you could tell he put his own twist on, but some songs I had to make sure Elvis’s wasn’t on the screen. Shelley Winters did a good job as Elvis’s mother and she in fact knew Elvis back in the 50’s, which was a cool connection.

There were two different actors in the film that had a direct connection to leading man, Kurt Russell. His father, Bing Russell portrayed Elvis’s father Vernon and Season Hubley portrayed Priscilla Presley in the film. Hubley at the time was engaged to Russell and were married just a couple weeks after the airing of the movie. The secretary at Sun Records was portrayed by Ellen Travolta, who happens to be John Travolta’s sister. What I thought was cool about this film was that there were actually two people in the movie that had very close ties to Elvis. His lead backup singer and one of his closest friends, Charlie Hodge portrayed himself. And his main female backup singer, Kathy Westmoreland portrayed herself as well.

My final thoughts on the film were good. It was a good portrayal of the King’s life. I knew going into it I likely wasn’t going to learn anything new, but as a fan you obviously want him to be portrayed as best as he can. Also, as a fan, you realize that there are some untruths or misleading details in the film as well. For instance, the film suggested that there was a girl named Bonnie that was set to marry Elvis when he was a teenager. There was no Bonnie. Bonnie didn’t exist, at least, not to my knowledge. There was a Dixie Locke and a June Juanico that he was tied to as a teenager, but no Bonnie. Also, it portrayed this Bonnie convincing Elvis to sing in the school’s talent show at 16/17, that didn’t happen either. Well, it did, but much earlier. He was in his school’s talent show at age 10 and that was the first time he performed in front of a crowd, but the film suggested that the high school show was his first, it wasn’t. Some of the songs didn’t match the timeline of the movie, but it wasn’t a big issue.

Other than those things, my only issue with the film was the fact that it glossed over a lot of things, especially the negatives in Elvis’s life. I realize that it was 1979 and a lot of things were rumored about Elvis, but not exactly proven. It was rumored that he had a prescription drug problem, but nothing was ever confirmed. And while he didn’t die from drugs precisely, they certainly contributed. And that’s another thing, they cut off the story around the early 70s. They didn’t really give a chance to see many negative things. It cut off when things were starting to really go downhill for him. Also, with Gladys Presley, they showed her death, but only said she had a liver issue, it didn’t tell that she battled alcoholism since he became famous and that his fame and time away from home led to her drinking heavily. It sugar-coated a lot of details, but that’s what I expected, especially since it was released just 18 months after his death. If you rewind to the beginning I thought in certain scenes where he’s talking to his dead twin are just too corny. Sure, he felt a connection, but he wasn’t a schizophrenic. That’s the way it came across in the film. I will say, the one scene where he’s talking about his life to “Jesse” as he’s older and there’s a shadow of him on the wall was a cool shot. Other than that, those scenes were all cheese.

I thought this was a really good biopic. It wasn’t perfect, but really good. Elvis was a beloved figure and his passing shocked the world. I knew going into it that the biopic wasn’t going to show the demons that led to his death. It was going to show just enough for the audience to get a picture of it, but not the full story. I kind of wish that they would’ve expanded a bit on his life and well, finished his story, but I realize that things weren’t exactly too concrete at the time of his death and really a few years after. I expected this. Some of the things in the film that weren’t true like his high school girlfriend Bonnie, is kind of puzzling, but it’s not vital enough to ruin the story. The movie is over 2 and a half hours long, but I felt like it breezed right through and that’s what you want with a film that goes over 2 hours. With all of this being said, I can’t wait to see the new biopic of Elvis. I have mixed thoughts about it, but I’m definitely going to go into the theater with an open mind. They’re going to show his whole life and I think they will dive a little deeper into his story than this one, well, I would hope so. Stay tuned for the new Elvis biopic review within the next couple of weeks, but for the original, I’ll give it a 4/5.

GRADE: 4.0/5

Yacs

Movie Review: Elvis (1979)

GRADE: 4.0/5