Let Us Pray – That’s The Way It Never Was

The close up with the guitar (middle shot) is in fact taken from the "Rubberneckin'" scene earlier in the movie. The clothes and the guitar itself gives it away.

I thought I had it all figured out. This was going to be a great post. However, it didn’t turn out that way at all, despite some hard work behind the keyboard. Here is what happened.

It all began while watching a video clip on YouTube of Elvis singing “Let Us Pray” in Father Gibbons’ Church at the end of the movie Change Of Habit. Suddenly it hit me that there was something wrong with the close-ups that showed Elvis’ hand strumming his guitar. The clothes and the guitar itself were not the same as in the other shots. In fact, they were taken from the beginning of the film where Elvis is belting out “Rubberneckin’” in Dr. John Carpenter’s apartment above the clinic.

Now, why had I not noticed this before? I did a quick google search, typing, “elvis let us pray scene movie blooper” but found nothing. Was I really the first one to have spotted this? I googled a bit more, changing the words some, but the result was the same. Not a thing.

I then looked up the editor on Wikipedia. Douglas Stewart (March 29, 1919-March 3, 1995) was an American film and television editor who won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for the film The Right Stuff (1983) along with four co-editors. Could such a professional really have cheated while editing the ending of Change Of Habit, using close-ups from another scene? Or had he somehow mixed up the footage, not realizing his mistake?

Whatever the reason, I got the idea to write a blog post about how those close-ups ended up in the final scene, using a bit of fiction. To get some inspiration, I read a couple of passages in Jerry Schilling’s book Me and a Guy Named Elvis that dealt with him becoming a film editor during the late 60’ and early 70’s. 

I was then ready to start typing something like this:

Douglas Stewart’s editing room in the basement of one of the post-production buildings at Universal Pictures was full of various reels of dialogue, songs and sound effects. As an assistant editor, it was my job to allow Douglas Stewart to work uninterrupted and I took great pride in maintaining order and structure in the editing room.

My plan was to have the assistant editor make a blunder, handing over close-up footage from the “Rubberneckin’” scene to Douglas Stewart who was busy editing the final of the movie, neither of them noticing the mix up. The assistant editor would spot the mistake when Change Of Habit was about to hit the cinemas, but by then it would be too late. Or something like that.

As I attended the premiere on November 10 I felt a sense of pride, having played a minor part in the editing of the movie. But that feeling was replaced by a chill running down my spine as I realized that the close-ups of Elvis guitar didn’t match the rest of the footage in the "Let Us Pray" movie final. What had happened?

Getting comfortable in front of my laptop I decided to watch the clip on YouTube once more before starting to hammer away at the keyboard. As I watched the scene unfold it was painfully clear that Douglas Stewart wasn’t to blame. Neither was my fictional assistant editor. In fact, no one was, as the clip was clearly re-edited and remixed long after the actual movie was finished in 1969. 

No doubt the footage from "Rubberneckin'" had been used intentionally to create this version (which was released on a bootleg DVD called Born To Rock 3, something I would have known had I bothered to read the text under the video clip).  

Why hadn't I spotted this before? I found another clip, this time of  the real ending, and sure enough, the close-ups with the guitar were nowhere in sight. And of course the whole scene was edited completely different. I felt like a fool.

The Making Of Frankie & Johnny

Frankie & Johnny and Elvis Now.

In November 1976, Pickwick Records reissued the Frankie and Johnny soundtrack album. Unlike the reissues of the RCA Camden compilations records, which featured the original artwork, it was updated with the same photo of Elvis as the one gracing the cover of the 1972 album Elvis Now. Also, the running order of the tracks were altered and three songs omitted. No one has ever told the story of how and why that happened. Until now.

[September 7, 1976]

The view from the executive office located in a corner of the Pickwick Records headquarters building in San Francisco is an impressive one. On a sunny day the big windows allows for an unobstructed panoramic view of the skyline and out into the Bay.

But the man sitting at the end of the long polished table couldn’t care less. Dressed in a three-piece suit and holding a cigar in his right hand, he has other things on his mind. He relights the cigar and stares at the album on the table in front of him.

“I mean, it’s great that we have an expanded mandate and can reissue this soundtrack album from the movie Frankie and Johnny, but look at the cover. Elvis looks overweight and the head is out of proportions. Almost as if it has been replaced with another shot.”

He glances up at his assistant sitting next to him and frowns.

“You know, my wife and I went to see him when he performed at the Cow Palace back in November 1970. That way something. Very electrifying. And I remember him wearing a cool white suit with a red belt made of snake leather. That’s what he should look like on an album cover.

The assistant, looking pretty cool himself in a brown and blue high collar paisley shirt and black striped pants, nods politely.

“Yes sir, I see what you mean, although I heard that he has gained some weight again. I actually have tickets to one of the two shows he will be doing at the Cow Palace this November, apparently they are already sold out. I guess I will see for myself then.”

“Yeah, well, but have you listened to the songs on this Frankie and Johnny thing? Not at all like the fast beat tunes he gyrated his way through when I saw him in 1970. They just don’t have the same energy or vitality. And three of them are downright horrible. I want them omitted from the album.”

He hands the assistant a handwritten note with three song titles listed: “Chesay”, “Look Out Broadway” and “Everybody Come Aboard”.

His assistant once again nods in agreement and in a moment of inspiration, gets an idea.

“Hey boss, why don’t we edit the album a bit by altering the running order of the remaining tracks?”

The man with the cigar looks at his assistant and sighs.

“That’s something I guess. And even if we can’t make it sound contemporary, we can always give it a more modern look. Remember that compilation album last year, the 2 LP-set Double Dynamite? It was a great idea using the same shot as the one on the Madison Square Garden album. It sold like hotcakes."

Double Dynamite and Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden.

He sweeps the original Frankie and Johnny LP away with a hand, revealing another album beneath it.

The assistant leans forward to get a better look.

“Elvis Now,” he reads aloud. "Hey look, the Elvis logo even includes a rainbow, much like the Pickwick one."

“Obviously we can’t use that. But the picture is what I’m talking about. A real 1970s-era image of Elvis that will be perfect.”

He takes a puff on his cigar, looks straight at his assistance and smiles.

“Get on the horn with RCA and ask them if we can use it. And be sure to chop those three songs. They won’t be missed.”

Additional notes
The reissue not only featured a shot of Elvis from the 70’s on the front cover and a couple more on the back, the title was also slightly amended to Frankie & Johnny, replacing the “and” with a “&”. There was no indication anywhere that it was a reissued soundtrack album, and to my understanding, this was the last Elvis release by Pickwick. After Elvis death RCA reclaimed the rights to his Camden releases from Pickwick. And yes, the dialogue above is of course pure fiction, but it was fun to write.

“Lots of standing and screaming”

One of the benefits from running an Elvis blog is that you get to hear from people who have their very own Elvis experiences. And sometimes those experiences can blow you away. Just the other week Mrs. Barbara Schoenburg e-mailed me about the FTD book A Moment In Time–4 Days in ’56, telling me she was at the Detroit concert on May 25, 1956, in the second row, middle.

The book includes some fantastic shots of Elvis driving the crowd wild at the Fox Theater in Detroit on that date (one of which was used on the cover of the Young Man With The Big Beat box set). So, firing away an e-mail in return, I asked Barbara if she would like to answer a couple of questions about her experiences that day. Imagine my excitement when I found her answers waiting for me in the mail the very next day. She began by telling me that she was in the picture on page 15 (the one from Young Man With The Big Beat). 

Barbara: I was 12 at the time. If you look at Elvis' right knee cap there is a girl and I am directly behind her, in front of the girl with the black shirt. Sorry to say I started losing interest in Elvis when he went into the army. I still have the early albums though. After that I never really was into his music.

Elvis Today: How come you went to the show?

Barbara: I loved Elvis' sound and thought he was so good looking, I collected magazines and stuff. All of which I threw out along the way to adulthood. Stupid me.

Elvis Today: What do you remember the most about Elvis’ performance?

Barbara: Just that I loved it. I was the only one of my friends that liked him so I went to the show alone. He was so good looking and moved in a way that I had never seen before. I remember screaming and wishing everyone would sit down so we could all see. I was short and it bothered me that people stood so I had trouble seeing some of the show. I do not remember any other acts. I do remember seeing him on the Ed Sullivan show and screaming as I watched and my grandmother demanding that I stop and arguing with her about turning off the TV. I won. I do not remember anything else about it.

Elvis Today: How did the crowd (yourself included) react when Elvis sang and moved?

Barbara: Lots of standing and screaming.

Elvis Today: Do you remember any particular song he sang?

Barbara: I do remember he sang “Heartbreak Hotel” which had been released just a few months previously. My husband and all his friends are impressed that I got to see him with his original band, Scotty Moore, Bill Black and DJ Fontana. I only had eyes for Elvis.

Elvis Today: Did you ever see Elvis live again?

Barbara: I saw him in April 1973 or November 1976 at the Anaheim CA Convention Center. He was into what I called the Liberace phase with the jump suits, and scarves. He had put on a lot of weight. He sounded good but it was not the same as seeing him for the first time. 

Thank you so much for your answers, Barbara, and for letting me share them with my readers!

A Moment In Time

Maybe a bit ironic, the first FTD book to come without an accompanying CD, A Moment in Time–4 Days in '56 (released in November last year), is one of the best from the label so far. Not only does the author Michael Rose present literally hundreds of never before seen photos from Elvis' late spring tour in 1956, with the help of a well written text he also tells the story behind the images.

I guess you could call A Moment In Time–4 Days in '56 a “textvisual documentary,” as opposed to the “audiovisual documentary” concept used on earlier FTD books that include CD's. And it's an approach that works extremely well. I found myself engulfed in the book, reading it from cover to cover while simultaneously studying the photographs.

As for the photos, they are the result of two national magazines, Seventeen magazine and Look magazine, sending photographers and writers to find out what Elvis was all about. Spending several days with him on the road, from Detroit to Columbus, then on to Dayton and finally home to Memphis, the resulting candid shots shows Elvis performing, meeting his fans, relaxing between shows and at home with his family.

For example, there are some great shots in the beginning of the book of Elvis spending time at a local arcade in Detroit, playing pinball and shooting a carnival gun. A couple of pages later the text tells the story of Elvis meeting five winners of an “Why Teenagers Like Elvis Presley” essay contest run by a local newspaper. And looking at the pictures, sure enough, there is Elvis hanging out with the kids, playing the piano for them, signing autographs and finally posing for a souvenir photo.

And then there's lots and lots of photos capturing Elvis on stage, showing just how dynamic and explosive he was in front of his audience. Accompanying some fantastic shots of Elvis driving the crowd wild at the Fox theater in Detroit (one of which was used on the cover of the Young Man With The Big Beat box set), is a quotation taken from a lucky fan who saw the 4 p.m. show:

I'll never forget how he dressed, the way he held the microphone, moved around the stage. He stood legs apart to swivel, then crouched down to touch outstretched hands. He was original and, damn, he was cool. The girls today would say 'hot,' and he was.

Speaking of fans, the book includes a couple of photos from one of the shows in Dayton of young girls screaming so much that they probably couldn't hear a word of what Elvis was singing. A local police officer standing close by watches them with an amused look on his face.

The book ends with Elvis spending some time at his new home in Memphis on Audubon Drive. There's photographs of him relaxing in the sofa between his mother and father, trying out his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and sitting in his 1956 three-wheeled Messerschmitt “microcar.”

The photographers also followed Elvis into his bedroom where he posed with his stuffed animal collection. In one of the final shots Elvis can be seen sitting on his bed, holding his mother's hand and looking happy and content. It must have felt good to be home again.

In December last year, Arjan Deelen, tour manager of The Original Elvis Tribute show, told me that A Moment In Time–4 Days In '56 is a real keeper. I couldn't have said it better.

Photographing The King

I first heard of photographer Sean Shaver and his book Photographing The King in 1982, when I saw an add for it in an issue of the British fan club magazine (that was the year I became a member). Little did I know at the time that I would get my hands on a copy of the book almost 30 years later, thanks to winning a bidding at the Swedish eBay site Tradera.

Sean Shaver became an Elvis fan as early as 1955. In 1967 he met and photographed Elvis. From then until Elvis' death he devoted himself to capturing him on film. In Photographing The King he shares some memories and many of the approximately 80,000 photographs he shot of Elvis.

In the introduction Sean Shaver states that he is not a writer. After reading the book last week I agree it's a bit unstructured. At the same time I found some of his stories fascinating. And a lot of his photos are really great, especially those from 1975 and 1976 (in early 1975 he started to use a new type of film and a special strobe).

Between February 1970 and right up until the last concert in June, 1977, Sean Shaver shot about 500 shows. How he managed to drive from city to city during all the different tours and catch all those concerts, financially as well as physically, I have no idea. And to make the conditions even worse, Colonel Parker didn't want him to take any pictures.

It's amusing to read about all the ways Sean Shaver tried to outsmart security in Las Vegas (where the rules against cameras were very strict). Many times he would go into the showroom with a camera attached to his ankle by a bandage, or have a girl sneak a camera into the room in her purse. He even used a pair of binoculars which were actually a camera.

Over the years Sean Shaver became closer and closer to Elvis and his entourage, although Colonel Parker continued to dislike him. He spent time with Elvis' pilots and even took pictures of Lisa Marie taking off, at Elvis' request. In fact, there are a couple of shots in the book of Elvis boarding or disembarking his plane, one of them having Elvis waving his finger at Shaver's camera.

One story I found particularly interesting was that Elvis' record producer Felton Jarvis asked Sean Shaver to get a shot of Elvis at the piano playing and singing "Unchained Melody." According to Shaver, Felton thought this would be the ultimate album cover. Sean Shaver got Felton Jarvis the shots he wanted, but when Colonel Parker heard about it Felton sent the pictures back.

Maybe it's a bit ironic that while no photos taken by Sean Shaver ever graced an Elvis album during Elvis' lifetime, they do today. The Follow That Dream release America, featuring Elvis concert at the City Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska, on April 22, 1976, is one such example.

After reading Photographing The King I tried to learn more about Sean Shaver by Googling the Internet. I can report there isn't much out there. I found a web page dedicated to Sean Shavers work, and some discussions on different forums, but that's about it. I couldn't even verify if he's alive or not. Can you help me out?

The lost photographs

The saying "a picture speaks more than a thousand words" came into my mind today as I looked at some of the recently found photographs of Elvis taken by former Madison Square Garden photographer George Kalinsky (Daily News shows a couple and so do abc News).

Turned out Kalinsky had four rolls of film with some 100 photos he'd taken at Elvis' second evening performance in The Garden but never printed. Well, better now then never!

Officials at Graceland were thrilled, and consider some of the photographs the most iconic ever taken. One of the shots, probably the most iconic of them all, showing Elvis holding out his cape, is proudly on display at Times Square, 36 feet tall. Talk about exposure!

In all of the photos Elvis seems to be in great shape in his "Porthole Suit," and you can almost feel the excitement just looking at them. I especially like this one, which presents a rather contemplating Elvis. (Or maybe I'm completely off the mark and he just sees something that he likes in the front row...)

For further impact while studying these lost photographs, play the accompanying "soundtrack," Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden. It makes you realise just how lucky those in the audience were to be part of that historical evening at Madison Square Garden, on June 10, 1972.

A picture of Elvis

A couple of days ago my parents paid me a visit. And, of course knowing their oldest son's favourite interest, they brought along a videocassette. On it was an episode of Antikrundan, a Swedish TV-program where experts on antiques travel around the country and estimates the value of old thing people bring them.

In this particular episode, a guy showed one of the experts a reproduction of a painting of Elvis signed by the King himself. Turned out the guy's aunt thought Elvis was so great that she traveled from Sweden to Memphis in 1963 and lived there for a year.

Apparently the aunt succeeded in getting to know Elvis some, and even tagged along to the movies with him and his pals at night. And then, when she was leaving for Sweden again, she wanted a memory of him and got him to autograph the painting. Here is what it looked like (in this case an unsigned copy):

Unfortunately the antique expert didn't seem too impressed by her time around Elvis, and instead concentrated on the signature, which he claimed was indeed Elvis's. His explanation for this was that the P and the R in Presley had some space between them, something a forger often misses.

Don't know anything about that, but the expert also showed the signature of the painter in the lower left corner, June Kelly. He then went on explaining that she painted pictures of Elvis which during the 60's were printed and given away with the purchase of some of his records.

Unfortunately the guy and his brother used a water pistol on the painting when they were young, so it had some spots on Elvis jacket. Otherwise, it looked fine to me, and so thought the expert who told the owner that a collector would pay between 10 000 and 15 000 Swedish crowns, about $1 600 – $2 500.

Turned out he was right on the money, when I searched the Internet I found a copy of exactly the same painting also signed by Elvis, which had sold for $2 500. (you can find it a bit down on this list). Finally, if you want to see the episode I've just described yourself (and hear what Swedish sounds like) click here and start 42 minutes and 50 seconds into the program.