Baz Luhrmann caught the Elvis bug while directing his 2022 blockbuster biopic that starred Austin Butler as the star and Tom Hanks as Col Tom Parker, his scheming manager. In the course of his research for that film – reviewed here (https://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2022/06/elvis-movie.html) on Just Backdated – he discovered a cache of largely unseen concert and rehearsal footage of Elvis that he’s brought to the big screen for what is not just the most impressive screen presentation of Elvis on stage but also, in newly discovered interview footage and voice-overs, the most revealing.
It’s now over 70 years since Elvis exploded out of Memphis which no doubt explains why Luhrmann felt it necessary to preface the on-stage material with an express train ride through his early career for those too young to know, and anyone who’s taken an interest in Elvis will already be familiar with the footage from his early B&W TV appearances and movies, as well as conscription into the army which shaped his career thereafter. Once that’s through we see Elvis rehearsing with his core band, location unknown, during which he sings ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’, ‘Runaway’, ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Something’, quite beautifully too, at least when he concentrates.
Although the precise date is not made clear, these preliminaries lead up to a show at the Las Vegas Hilton, presumably one of the earliest, probably in 1970. We see him in his all-white jumpsuit lingering at the side of the stage as the band begin. He looks a tad nervous, his leg twitching. Then someone draws the curtain aside for him and he steps out… BOOM. This is what we’re here for. Elvis grins, then zips into a fast-paced ‘That’s all Right’, and he sounds marvellous, as does the band, fat and punchy with enormous drive, and in the cinema it’s very loud, deep thumping bass and crackling lead guitar.
This is Elvis before the fried banana and bacon sandwiches took their toll and he looks and sounds terrific, the most handsome, sexiest man on the planet who can sing like no one else. No wonder those watching – we see them all in the crescent-shaped supper room, tier after tier, row on row of elegantly dressed customers, mostly female – go potty. Then he’s into ‘Hound Dog’, ‘Polk Salad Annie’, ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ and a phenomenal segue back and forth between ‘Little Sister’ and The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’.
Elvis entertains as well as sings – in one of the interviews he describes himself as “an entertainer”, which I thought was revealing – and he can be cheesy. He enjoys fooling around with the women at the front, kissing them, touching them, and at one point completes a song with what looks like a dark blue bra on his head. Some of this tom-foolery might be designed to show that he’s human after all, and not the godlike superstar his fans adore, but it detracts from the act, even if amuses the band and his back-up singers.
The concert footage is cleverly interspersed with rehearsal footage of the same songs – they switch back and forth – and though from time to time there’s an issue with the lip-synching, it doesn’t really matter. In between we get the interviews, some from a 1970 press conference at the Houston Astrodome – the first venue outside of Vegas where Elvis performed after his 1969 comeback – and some from the 1972 conference in New York prior to his Madison Square Garden show that year. Still more, as voice-overs between songs, have evidently been sourced from hitherto unreleased interviews suppressed by Parker who was notoriously reluctant to allow Elvis ever to speak to the press. Parker, incidentally, is seen occasionally throughout, invariably in unflattering situations, occasionally flogging tat.
Among other things Elvis disparages his movies from the Sixties, sounding almost apologetic, talks about his background in gospel music and expresses a desire to perform in Europe. He sounds humble, as if the direction his life has taken still puzzles him, and seems to have difficulty explaining himself.
But it’s the music that matters and although later footage in the second half of the movie – probably from 1972 when he was beginning to tire – doesn’t quite hit the spot as much as the earlier material, we get an all too brief ‘I Shall Be Released’, from a rehearsal, ‘Burnin’ Love’, ‘Love Me’, ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, ‘You Were Always On My Mind’, ‘Oh Happy Day’, the hymn ‘How Great Though Art’, ‘Big Hunk Of Love’, ‘In The Ghetto’, ‘Walk A Mile In My Shoes’ and a stupendous ‘Suspicious Minds’. The curtain comes down after ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’.
No review of this movie would be complete without showering praise on Elvis’ superb band, mostly notably James Burton on lead guitar, Jerry Scheff on Fender bass and Ronnie Tutt on drums. All of them play as if their lives depend on it. Shamefully, they are not even mentioned in the closing credits.
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