"Together they burn up the screen"

Because of a cold I called in sick today, and spent the entire day at home. In the afternoon I was really bored, so I decided to catch an Elvis movie. I picked up my copy of Viva Las Vegas from the shelf, inserted the disc in the DVD-player and threw myself on the couch.

Viva Las Vegas is a fun movie to watch, if for no other reason because of the obvious chemistry between Elvis and Ann-Margret. "Together they burn up the screen," the trailer proclaims, and that's no exaggeration! A couple of good songs, among them the title track, "C'mon Everybody" and the humorous duet "The Lady Loves Me" also plays a part, of course.


Another song I've always enjoyed is the tender ballad "Today, Tomorrow And Forever." But not until today have I realised that Elvis is singing only slightly more than one minute of the song in the movie, and that made me come up with a theory.

Maybe the reason the song is so short is that the whole scene was filmed as a duet, but then edited down, when for some reason it was decided not to let Ann-Margret sing in it. Could it have been the work of the good old Colonel, perhaps? Maybe I'm completely off the mark, what do you think?

I also have to mention a blooper I noticed. When Lucky and Rusty are flying a chopper over the Hoover Dam Elvis wears a basketball cap and headphones one moment, and neither cap nor headphones the next. It kind of reminded me of the beginning in Clambake where Elvis drives his sports car, and wears sunglasses when the camera is far away but no glasses in the close ups.

Finally, did you know there's a connection between the Grand Prix race in Viva Las Vegas and the podracing sequence in Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace? Be sure to check out Tyggrius' Elvis-Viva Las Star Wars-post over at The Film Frontier blog.