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Elvis (1979)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 11/25

Elvis79
11/25: Compared to Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, this one is so much better by being calm, normal, and inclusive.

Hands down, Kurt Russell wins the contest of Elvis impersonators. He has the look and moves down pat and even starred in a movie with the King himself: It Happened at the World's Fair. Sure, it isn't his actual singing voice, having been badly dubbed, but that's all right. Two out of three ain't bad.

The first half is good and shows a lot of stuff, especially Elvis working his way up in local and regional shows before hitting big nationally on September 9, 1956, when he appeared in The Ed Sullivan Show. However, the second half is so slow that there's hardly any substance. Come on, John Carpenter...you can do better, but he stated that he had no involvement in the editing process which disappointed him overall.

It's possible the film was being dictated by the estate to make sure nothing negative was featured. There are some true glimpses of Elvis' habits such as developing a very close relationship to his mother who most likely died from cirrhosis of the liver due to alcoholism, working on his karate skills, eating a peanut butter banana sandwich, keeping up with Hollywood by watching movies, grooming Priscilla Beaulieu while she was in high school, throwing a violent temper tantrum, and hanging out with the Memphis Mafia so much. Kurt Russell even wore the real white jumpsuit from the 70's that had an eagle on the back.

At one point in the film, Elvis was looking at a gaggle of fans outside the front gate of Graceland through his security camera. 14 was the magic number: the age of girls he preferred to have sex with. Many defend this by saying it was different in the 50's, but he was still doing it in his 30's and 40's. Hell, Elvis was 24 when he met the 14-year-old Priscilla in Germany. The whole thing about them is mostly fake, but the myth was debunked a couple of decades later, so I give this one a pass. At any rate, Season Hubley is obviously too old to play the younger version of Priscilla.

All in all, the 1979 version of Elvis is the gold standard, but it can be better by getting into the dark stuff.