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GI Blues
After the success of two his best films, Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, Elvis Presley's film career took a serious backslide with a flimsy outing from 1960 called GI Blues, which features a really tuneful score and an offbeat choice of leading lady, but suffers due to a badly dated storyline and some less than stellar production values.
Elvis plays Tulsa McLean, an army soldier stationed in East Germany who is planning to open a nightclub back home with two of his army buddies. In order to make the money he needs to open his club, he gets in on a bet that a ladies man in his unit named Dynamite can spend the night with a beautiful nightclub dancer named Lili (Juliet Prowse). Unfortunately, Dynamite gets transferred out of the unit and guess who's drafted to take his place in seducing the beautiful dancer?
Edmond Beloin and Henry Gibson are responsible for the rather skimpy screenplay that really doesn't play too well in 2020. There have been several Broadway musicals, Guys and Dolls and My Fair Lady among them, whose plots are centered on the concept of a bet, but these bets always seem to have a sexist component to them and that is definitely the case here. I also found the military motif for the story to be rather superfluous...the setting of the film is supposedly 1960 and I don't think there was any war going on at the time, but for guys who are supposed to be in the military, they seemed to have an awful lot of free time, During Tulsa's first date with Lili, there are a half dozen soldiers following them all over town...these soldiers have nothing else to do?
My other problem with this film was a serious lack of care to production values. All of the musical numbers sound canned and Elvis' lip-synching to his own voice doesn't match the sound he produced recording the numbers in the sound studio. There is one song called "Pocketful of Rainbows" that Elvis and Prowse sing together, but when Prowse sings, her voice sounds like it's in a tunnel a thousand miles away from Elvis. She also kisses him at the end of the number, while the vocal track is still singing. It should also be mentioned that despite being set in Germany, it is more than obvious that most of this film never left a Hollywood soundstage.
On the plus side, Juliet Prowse was an unusual choice of leading lady and her dance numbers were definitely among the film's few highlights. I also thought Elvis had one of the better scores he has had to sing here including "Frankfort Special", "Tonight is so Right for Love" "Shoppin Around", "Didja Ever" and the jazzy title tune. Granted, this was only Elvis' fifth film, but after Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, this Elvis outing was a real disappointment, Elvis does look great in an army uniform though.
After the success of two his best films, Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, Elvis Presley's film career took a serious backslide with a flimsy outing from 1960 called GI Blues, which features a really tuneful score and an offbeat choice of leading lady, but suffers due to a badly dated storyline and some less than stellar production values.
Elvis plays Tulsa McLean, an army soldier stationed in East Germany who is planning to open a nightclub back home with two of his army buddies. In order to make the money he needs to open his club, he gets in on a bet that a ladies man in his unit named Dynamite can spend the night with a beautiful nightclub dancer named Lili (Juliet Prowse). Unfortunately, Dynamite gets transferred out of the unit and guess who's drafted to take his place in seducing the beautiful dancer?
Edmond Beloin and Henry Gibson are responsible for the rather skimpy screenplay that really doesn't play too well in 2020. There have been several Broadway musicals, Guys and Dolls and My Fair Lady among them, whose plots are centered on the concept of a bet, but these bets always seem to have a sexist component to them and that is definitely the case here. I also found the military motif for the story to be rather superfluous...the setting of the film is supposedly 1960 and I don't think there was any war going on at the time, but for guys who are supposed to be in the military, they seemed to have an awful lot of free time, During Tulsa's first date with Lili, there are a half dozen soldiers following them all over town...these soldiers have nothing else to do?
My other problem with this film was a serious lack of care to production values. All of the musical numbers sound canned and Elvis' lip-synching to his own voice doesn't match the sound he produced recording the numbers in the sound studio. There is one song called "Pocketful of Rainbows" that Elvis and Prowse sing together, but when Prowse sings, her voice sounds like it's in a tunnel a thousand miles away from Elvis. She also kisses him at the end of the number, while the vocal track is still singing. It should also be mentioned that despite being set in Germany, it is more than obvious that most of this film never left a Hollywood soundstage.
On the plus side, Juliet Prowse was an unusual choice of leading lady and her dance numbers were definitely among the film's few highlights. I also thought Elvis had one of the better scores he has had to sing here including "Frankfort Special", "Tonight is so Right for Love" "Shoppin Around", "Didja Ever" and the jazzy title tune. Granted, this was only Elvis' fifth film, but after Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, this Elvis outing was a real disappointment, Elvis does look great in an army uniform though.