Elvis Presley was embarrassed by greater than the kinky allegations surrounding his 1964 movie | Films | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Can you ever have an excessive amount of Elvis? 40 years in the past, movie studios hoped not once they forged the rock and roll legend within the Nineteen Sixties gentle comedy Kissing Cousins.

Released in March 1964, on the floor it regarded like simply one other frothy confection of tangled romances, intercut with jaunty songs, however there was an enormous twist.

Unfortunately, it was not the twist the producers have been hoping for as one central facet of the plot and the track lyrics grew to become the main focus of ridicule and even outrage. Not to say the dodgy blond ‘do or the even creakier special effects (even for that time) that caused embarrassment for a star increasingly desperate to get off the B-movie merry-go-round.

Just look at the clip from the title song below – even a performer as charismatic and natural on camera as Elvis looks ill at ease and check how obvious the extra is in a wig playing him from behind…

The gimmick was that Elvis played two characters, US Army soldier Josh Morgan and his country hick third-cousin Jodie Tatum. Josh is used by his superiors to convince his distant family to lease their land in the Tennessee Mountains for a missile base.

The two look identical, except Josh has Elvis’ distant darkish hair, whereas Jodie spots a somewhat apparent wig and stereotyped hillbilly mannerisms.

Naturally for the time, the area is awash with stunning and scantily clad girls, together with Josh’s cousins Azalea and Selena Tatum (Yvonne Craig and Pamela Austin.) There’s additionally a rampaging pack of single ‘gals’, nicknamed the “Kittyhawks, the most beautiful collection of mountain cuties ever!’ Looking rather like the gaggles of girls in the background of every Elvis film, they’re on the hunt for eligible bachelors – especially army boys.

So far, so predictable. Even the fact that Josh’s own cousins are fighting over him  and he eventually picks Azalea (pairing Selena off with an army pal), didn’t raise too many eyebrows at first. But it was the title track that really put the issue front and centre.

Lyrics included: “Kissin’s allowed ’cause we’re proud to be cousins. What’s a little teasin’, huggin’ and a-squeezin’, Between us cousins?” Later on, it provides, “Honey we dress and we mess, We’re just cousins, Cousins, kissin’ cousins!”

There was a lot ridicule over the recommended incestuousness of all of it, which has solely grown through the years. Critics, unsurprisingly, weren’t variety, including to Elvis’ distress as he watched his lifelong desires of additionally making it as a reputable actor disappearing in a single tacky, cardboard cutout film after one other.

His supervisor Colonel Parker notoriously solely cared concerning the upfront price he charged for his shopper and that prices have been all the time saved to an absolute minimal on the shoot.

And so, regardless of the novelty and marketable angle of getting Elvis play two characters without delay, and the potential for the star to essentially stretch his performing chops, the amusing angle that the cousins regarded an identical was barely explored within the movie.

Even worse, Parker’s parsimoniousness meant that the particular results used to place them in the identical scene collectively have been low cost and apparent. It value $750 every time to place the 2 Elvis’ in the identical shot and so it was solely executed 4 instances all through the entire movie. Just have a look at the manifestly apparent empty house with solely straw and rock within the shot beneath.

Critics skewered the drained format and lazy filmmaking. Furthermore, musicals have been fading out of vogue – and the standard format of randomly bursting into track mid-scene was more and more seen as corny and ridiculous by filmmakers and audiences alike.

In the tip, the movie hit quantity 11 and earned a good $3 million, commonplace for many of Elvis’ movies in that interval. Only its successor, the smash hit Viva Las Vegas with Ann Margret would give the star a quick field workplace enhance, banking $9.4million.

The Kissing’ Cousins soundtrack was a success, reaching quantity six on the Billboard charts, whereas the controversial track made it to quantity 12 in these extra ‘innocent’ instances.

Probably most irritating for The King was the truth that even the critics believed he deserved so a lot better than the lazy autos he was too typically compelled into. Variety famous: “Presley needs — and merits — more substantial material than this if his career is to continue to flourish as in the past.”

Unfortunately, in fact, his movie profession by no means got here near fulfilling the potential that critics and plenty of co-stars noticed.  His ultimate movie was 1969’s gritty Change of Habit and a possible comeback reverse Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born sadly fell aside.