Tickle Me - an exception to the rule

I finally got around to ordering the DVD box set "Elvis - The Hollywood Collection" this evening. The six Elvis films it contains are the last ones I don't own on DVD (except "On Tour" which has not been officially released yet) so it really was just a matter of time.

The one of the bunch I'm looking forward to the most is "Tickle Me" which I think is really amusing and certainly stands out among Elvis mid 60's motion pictures. Though certainly low-budget like the rest of them, it has some great comedy, especially the final scenes in the haunted hotel.

It is ironical that because of budget reasons, the soundtrack is one of the strongest from this period as well. The explanation is, of course, that it's made up of previously released songs dating as far back as from the 1960 "Elvis Is Back"-sessions.

You just have to compare songs like "Dirty, Dirty Feeling" and "I'm Yours" with "Wolf Call" and "Fort Lauderdale Chamber Of Commerce" from Elvis previous movie "Girl Happy" (by the way included in the DVD box set as well) to understand how that worked out for the better.

"Tickle Me" helped save the movie company Allied Artists from financial ruin, at least for another year. I'm looking forward to seeing it in perfect picture quality for the first time, that will certainly help save my day!

More colorized Elvis

The colorized version of "Jailhouse Rock" that I wrote about yesterday has been released on bootleg DVD, ElvisNews.com is reporting today. Judging by the opinions expressed in connection with that piece of news, not many seem to be in favour of colorized versions of Elvis black and white films.

I guess a lot of fans feel the same way about the remixes of "A Little Less Conversation" and "Rubberneckin'". I agree, to a certain extent. But if the remixes are done with care I see no harm in it. And if it helps keeping the interest in Elvis alive and gets him new fans, I'm all for it.

The same goes for the colorization of his movies, I guess. That's why I thought it was interesting watching two colorized clips of "Love Me Tender" on Youtube, that to me look like they are professionally done. One is of Elvis singing the title song (view it here), the other is the closing scene of the movie:



Does this mean there exists a colorized version of "Love Me Tender", like it does of "Jailhouse Rock"? Anyone out there who can shed some light on this?

Jailhouse Rock - colorized version

I recently retired my collection of Elvis-movies on VHS. The reason, obviously, is that most of them are now available in better quality on DVD. But three VHS-cassettes avoided the destiny of the others and didn't wind up in the attic. These are "Elvis on Tour", "The Lost Performances" and a colorized version of "Jailhouse Rock".

The last two I bought in a double video box set in 1992. "The Lost Performances" I watched many times, but "Jailhouse Rock" I think, only once. So I gave it a chance today, and it was fun to look at. Especially the colors on the cool jackets and shirts that Elvis wear in the movie.



But then I got the idea to put "Loving You" (which was filmed in color) in the DVD-player for comparison. And at once I realised how crude the colorization was on "Jailhouse Rock", kind of like the colors in a cartoon and not at all like in reality.

Apparently there was a lot of controversy when Turner Entertainment started to colorize old movies, such as "Jailhouse Rock" in the late 80's, but it died when the colorization stopped in the mid 90's due to the high costs involved.

But now colorization seems to be profitable again, because on a DVD you can include both a b/w and a color version (even though it wasn't done on the new deluxe edition of "Jailhouse Rock"). And certainly, the technique must have developed a lot in recent years.

For me, "Jailhouse Rock" will always be coolest to watch in black and white. But I admit it would be interesting to see what a colorized version of "King Creole" would look like. How about next year, 50 years after its original release?

You gotta follow that dream

The summer of 1999 saw the launch of the collectors label "Follow That Dream" with the title "Burbank 68". In the eight years since then the label has produced 66 releases (61 CD's and five books with CD's). That's an average of over eight releases a year. That's an incredibly release schedule when you think about it.

Compare it with the really "dry" years 1978 to 1986 when only about 25 Elvis-releases from RCA saw the light of the day (that's three albums a year). And many were compilations with mostly old material, like "The Rocker" and "Always On My Mind".

In those days it was a long wait for a new Elvis record, and an album like "Elvis: The First Live Recordings" or "Elvis - A Golden Celebration" was a big happening, indeed. Nowadays it's a totally different story, only last year ten new FTD-titles were made available to the fans.

Still, it's not easy to please everyone. Ernst Jorgensen and Roger Semon, the men who put together the FTD-releases, have constantly been criticized for not releasing the right material, bad mixes, poor artwork on the covers and so on.

And certainly, I don't agree with everything they do either. But the amount of unreleased material that they have made available is really awesome, and I for one only have to think back to the 80's to realize how lucky the fans are to have them.

But I do admit that I’m curious as to why the FTD-titles are being released so close behind each other. My bet is Ernst Jorgensen is afraid the financial backing can disappear any second and that it's therefore best to put the records out as fast as possible. Keep a-movin, move along…

Viva Las Vegas - Dinner or Midnight Show?

My copy of the new Elvis 2 CD "Viva Las Vegas" arrived yesterday and right now I'm listening to the second disc one more time, which is a Las Vegas show from August 21, 1969.

Apparently many others have been doing the same since it was released. Because on the forum on Elvis-collectors.com, there has been a long discussion among its members if this is the Dinner or Midnight Show (Nearly 390 comments that have been read over 14000 times have been made on this subject!).

Recording lists have been scrutinized, comparisons been made to the bootleg "The Legend Lives On" and conclusion been drawn. But there seems to be no consensus and some members put forward the theory that it's a splice of both the Dinner and Midnight Show.

Sometimes it amazes me the time and effort fans make to find out about a certain take, date or release. But I guess I'm no better, I sat part of yesterday evening listening to the record and at the same time scrutinizing Joe Tunzis "Elvis Sessions III" but sharing the fate of my fellow fans and finding no definite answer to the question either.

But I did find out that "What'd I Say" is the best version of the song I've ever heard, Ronnie Tutts drumming is amazing. "Fantastic," Elvis exclaims after the ending, and I agree 100 percent!

"Can't tell if it's comedy or drama"

This Sunday afternoon I watched a picture called "Bubba Ho-tep" from 2002 on DVD. The plot, in short, is that Elvis and John F Kennedy are alive and in a nursing home, where they fight an ancient Egyptian mummy who eats the souls of the residents (view the trailer here).

I guess you could call it both a comedy and a horror movie. I think it's hilarious. And the best thing is, you can watch it with an audio commentary by the king. You hear Elvis (actor Bruce Campbell who is playing Elvis in the movie) telling you that he's been asked by the producer to sit in and tell him what he thinks of the picture, this "Ho-tep thing".

But he has a hard time concentrating on the movie and talks about everything from his own movie career ("I did 33 pictures, never any horror pictures though") to how to make the perfect peanut butter banana sandwich. He also mentions his meeting with Nixon, and on several occasions is interrupted when his cell phone starts ringing. One of the callers, I think, is Lisa Marie.

From time to time he does manage to make a comment about the movie ("This doesn't look like anything a dignified actor would do" and "I wish the director would do a movie that was a little more mature", for example).

A funny detail is that he two times mentions that the jumpsuits in the picture "look really familiar, they look good", but for an Elvis-fan it's pretty obvious they don't look like the real thing.

Enough said, rent "Bubba Ho-tep" as soon as possible and see it yourself. I highly recommend it!

No put luck with Girls! Girls! Girls!

I read today that the next two Follow That Dream releases will be "Girls! Girls! Girls" and "Pot Luck". That made me think of when I heard the songs on "Girls! Girls! Girls!" for the first time.

It must have been in the early 80's. Me and my brother (who also is an Elvisfan) took the train from the suburb where we lived to the big record store in town where they had pretty much all of the LPs from Elvis catalogue. This time my brother bought the double LP "From Memphis To Vegas/From Vegas To Memphis" and I picked "Girls! Girls! Girls!".

In those days we still hadn't heard all of Elvis songs. So every LP we bought was "new" to us, and it was always very exiting to come home and put it on the record-player.

This time, I think we started with my brothers’ record, and man, it blew us away! This, we agreed, was a great double album, especially the first LP recorded live on stage in Las Vegas in 1969.

Then it was my turn with "Girls! Girls! Girls!" and I remember that I thought the title track was pretty much ok (after all it was a Leiber/Stoller number) and "I Don’t Wanna Be Tied" bumped along pretty good. But then my disappointment grew as we listened to "Where Do You Come From", "A Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You" and the terrible "Song Of The Shrimp". Even "Return To Sender" couldn't cheer me up.

Funny, I can still recall how jealous I was. I wish that I had bought "From Memphis To Vegas/From Vegas To Memphis" and that my brother had chosen "Girls! Girls! Girls!" instead. Fortunately, that feeling has long since passed but "Girls! Girls! Girls!", I have to admit, hasn’t been one of my most played Elvis albums through the years.

Maybe I would have been happier that day with my brother if I had picked “Put Luck” instead. Though Elvis recorded the majority of the songs for that album only about a week before the soundtrack session for the movie “Girls! Girls! Girls!”, the two albums are miles apart. That's why I'm happy the FTD release of “Pot Luck” is a double CD and “Girls! Girls! Girls!” only a single disc.