So this right here is why you don’t blind buy Elvis movies. I saw that IHATWF had a Blu Ray version on Amazon and I figured it was can’t miss. It fell within the time frame of my favorite Elvis film Viva Las Vegas, it was directed by Norman Taurog who directed 2 of my other faves Blue Hawaii and Spinout, and it was on BLU. The only other film from this era I’ve found that gave me those sweet technicolor HD pops has been Viva Las Vegas. How could I lose?
It starts off all well and good with Elvis as a mischievous pilot who loves 3 things: singin’, cropdustin’ and bird doggin’ chicks with his buddy Danny. Of course it’s all fun and games until their crop duster “Bessie” gets taken away by a mean old sheriff and the boys have to hitchhike to the World’s Fair in Seattle. Somehow these hot shots need to raise the princely sum of $1200 or Bessie gets auctioned off to the highest bidder!
If you’ve read my Elvis movie reviews in the past you know I find the dopey casual misogyny in these films to be hilarious and almost quaint by today’s standards. But this one just starts off all sideways and gets worse as it goes. I mean it’s not wrong to laugh at Elvis accidentally walking through a screen door when “the parents” walk in on him and some broad. I should have been outright guffawing when the old man literally pulled a shotgun on him. Yet something about how they got to the punchline was just not right (even for these movies).
The first musical number leading up to this screen door business is one of the most rapey things I’ve ever seen. It’s 2 minutes and change of Elvis singing a song called “Relax” while he tries to grope and fondle what appears to be a 17 year old. I’m pretty sure she told him no about 14 and a half times during the song. The people who get up in arms over “Baby It’s Cold Outside” every Christmas would probably pass out after the first :30 seconds of this rapey nonsense. Sample lyric:
“Relax, let’s uncork the stopper. Come to papa, come on let’s go. Defrost your charms. There’s only the two of us here.”
Yikes babe. Elvis’ overheated poon hound just comes off as gross here. The stark contrast between this and Viva Las Vegas is astounding. I suppose the obvious difference in that film is that they are in Vegas – city of sins – but honestly Ann-Margaret gives as good as she gets there. She melts Elvis off the screen. She can out dance him, out sing him and also lead his dumb honky ass right into a swimming pool where his money falls down the drain (no hick sheriff required!).
Whereas Vegas is horny, flirty and cool….IHATWF is creepy, tedious and just plain odd. I mean Elvis just forcing himself on every woman he sees? Are they going for some sort of parody, because usually it’s the other way around isn’t it? In real life no woman would turn Elvis down, but here they all claim to need “wolf repellant” to spray in his face. This is supposed to be a good time for the family?
As with most of the Elvis musicals, the music can really make or break the whole thing, and this set of tunes is bottom of the barrel dog feces. The best song of the bunch is “One Broken Heart for Sale” the only song that charted on Billboard as a hit. Yet Elvis sings the song in a trailer park to a bunch of bald 48 yr olds who run a local card game.
The whole aesthetic of this film is just bizarre. Elvis is just so infinitely better looking than everyone (man or woman), that he comes of like an alien (think Jeff Bridges in Starman). Not only that, he wears a suit everywhere he goes while everyone else dresses like it’s casual friday down at the five and dime. The dialogue is beyond atrocious. There is a sequence where Elvis’ “Mike” tells Danny that the new woman he is pursuing is “chilly, ice cold” and he responds back “Well they all have to be room temperature right?” Um…what?
Also why is Elvis named “Mike”? You can’t think of a better name for the King of Rock N Roll? In Viva Las Vegas he’s a race car driver named Lucky Jackson. THAT’S a fucking name. What’s next we put Prince in a movie and call him “Doug”? Or we put David Bowie in a movie and name him “Bart”? This is so much nonsense I just can’t fathom it.
Fortunately all of this set up of the evil date rapey Mike leads to the main crux of the film. Elvis must take the 6 yr old niece of the truck driver he hitch hiked with to the World’s Fair as some sort of moral penance. The truck driver then just disappears into thin air and the 6 year old tracks Elvis down and lives with him in his trailer park. Don’t worry it’s not weird at all when Elvis sings her a macabre lullaby about the sandman and circus clowns. An 11 year old Kurt Russell also shows up and kicks Elvis in the shins as hard as he can not once, but twice.
If you don’t think any of this makes sense, you’re right! It sure doesn’t. Yet the film magically resolves itself when Elvis’ mannequin…er…love interest narcs him off to child services (again not weird or awkward at all). Then in the final moments we learn that the Uncle accidentally drove his truck into the Puget Sound and was missing for days but he’s totally fine now. Happy ending right? NOT YET! Elvis then prances hand and hand through the World’s Fair with the woman who reported him to child services. They are also leading a marching band while singing a song with a chorus that exclaims “Happy Ending, HAPPY ENDING” …wouldn’t life be so grand if we could all have such glorious redemption!
Honestly there is zero point to any of this, like they aren’t even trying. It was like – let’s have Elvis sing near this new contraption we are building called the Space Needle (which looks magnificent in technicolor all shiny, new and shimmering in the clouds). I read it was actually the Mayor of Seattle who gave MGM the idea for this movie. It is unclear if a script was even needed…or wanted.
Well I own this one now. At least I can say Kurt Russell is in it! Gosh I don’t think I could make it through this again if I had a gallon of red bull or an Easter basket filled with pot cookies 🍪 …I’m not sure either direction would help my mental health much right now. I usually watch these movies to get into a good mood when I’m blue, but I had to watch a randy episode of Winning Time after this just to wash the Pacific Northwest cropduster stink off of me.
I think next time I’ll just meditate instead using the lyrics from the outro of “Relax”:
Relax
Mmm
Let Loose
Mmm
Defrost
Mmm, Mmm
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Previously Published on letterboxd,com
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