Back in April 2020, when we were all mostly still (kind of) hopeful that the whole pandemic thing was going to only last a few weeks, I started thinking of doing things that I never had the time to do under regular circumstances, and may never have the time to do once things got back to normal. So, with things shut down, why not use this golden opportunities to do something I'd thought about for years - watching every Elvis movie. ​

 

I've been in a band called Little Elvis pretty much non-stop since about 1991. Little E does only Elvis movie songs, so we'd find songs from the vinyl soundtracks or watching whatever movies we could find on VHS tapes and later dvds. 

 

So I'd seen a handful of Elvis movies over the years. King Creole and Girl Happy a few times each. Girls! Girls! Girls!, It Happened At The World's Fair, Jailhouse Rock, one of the "Hawaii ones" and one of the "race car ones", I recalled. 

 

I looked into how many Elvis movies there were, and how available they were. Turns out there were 34 movies total, if you count the two concert movies and the 68 Comeback Special. That meant there were 31 movies with plots*. 

 

May was coming up. There are 31 days in May.

 

31 Elvis movies...

 

31 days in May...

 

Could it be done? Could I watch one Elvis movie a day and write a review the same day? 

Was it insane?*** 

 

Spoiler alert - I can testify that it can be done, cuz I done done it. I watched each and every Elvis movie, in order, one a day, every day in May 2020, and posted a review by the end of the day. I pushed the deadline a number of times. I questioned the sanity of the endeavor almost daily. I found some incredible turds, but also a couple of movies that I truly love. 

 

It's pretty easy to write these movies off. They've become punchlines. Some people claim that they are the reason Elvis started taking drugs. There are a few that made me want to start taking drugs. 

 

Still, you gotta give credit where credit's due. The first movie, Love Me Tender came out in 1956. The last, Change of Habit, came out in 1969. That's 31 movies in 13 years, an average of 2.3846 movies a year. On top of recording and touring and tv appearances!

 

If nothing else, Elvis had a hell of a work ethic.

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A NOTE ON CONTENT: As I read these almost five years later, I still really like them. I'm seeing places I could tighten things up, or jokes that I missed, but I've decided at this point that I'm going to post them here pretty much exactly as they were originally posted. Because of the constraints of writing them within a few hours after watching the movies, they have an off the cuff feel that the wouldn't have if I'd given myself more time. Maybe later I'll do some updates, but for now, I'm going to let them be what they are. I hope you enjoy them!

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*I will use the term "plot" loosely, because, turns out, many of the movies have stories that barely qualify as plots.**

 

** I like footnotes, and use them regularly in the reviews. Tip of the hat to the late great David Foster Wallace.

 

*** Yes