Elvis movies quiz

What it says in the title… Guess the Elvis movie from the synopsis. Clue: all these movies were made after Elvis served his fatherland. The answers are in the comments section. Not that I’d know any of them. Except two. When Elvis went to Hollywood, he hoped to inherit James Dean’s mantle of rebellion. As these questions may suggest, he didn’t even inherit Bing Crosby’s mantle of casually whistling acquiescence.

1. Elvis is a singing heir to a pineapple plantation in Hawaii who becomes, as you do when the future holds a panama hat, a tour guide. He falls in love and sings 14 (count ‘em) songs, including that ghastly tune ignorant people tend to call “Wise Man Say”.

2. Elvis is a singing swimming pool lifeguard who couldn’t cut it in the circus. He falls in love. With a bullfighter. Alas, it was not an edgy message movie well ahead of its time. The bullfighter is — and the shrewd reader guessed it — a woman.

3. Elvis is a singing rodeo rider. Looking for gold, he falls in love and, don’t say you didn’t see that one coming, gets married to his lady love. Aaah!

4. Elvis is a singing racing driver working as a bus boy (which means, he clears tables, not speed through the streets in a doubledecker). He falls in love with a swimming instructor. And — spoiler alert — together they win a talent competition. Hurrah!

5. Elvis is a singing charter boat pilot in Hawaii, who is torn between two girls. In the end (spoiler alert redux!) he goes — gulp — for the good girl.

6. Elvis is a singing bush pilot who takes care of a little Chinese kid. He then, yes, falls in love.

7. Elvis plays a non-singing (!) gunslinger come good. He fails to sing, but — phew — he does fall in love (else what movie would there be?). With a dance hall queen.

8. Elvis is a singing rodeo rider (again), but with an ethnic twist: he is of Native-American descent. This time, Elvis doesn’t so much fall in love but play the field, going for a mother and daughter combo. Off-screen Elvis preferred the teenage daughters; will he go for the MILF on-screen?

9. Elvis is, but of course, a singing racing driver who, plausibly enough, falls in love with a singing government agent in go-go boots.

10. Elvis is a singing boxer who is supposed to take a fall. But he does fall. In love. With the love interest from movie (1).

11. Elvis is a navy frogman. Oh yes, he is. And the kicker is, at night he sings in a nightclub. Oh, but he does. The unbelievable plot device here: Elvis fails to fall in love but goes treasure hunting instead. Will he find the treasure?

12. Elvis is a singing helicopter pilot. And guess where. No, really, take a stab in the dark. Give up? Why, he’s a singing helicopter pilot in Hawaii, silly. But this movie is not like all the others in which Elvis is a singing action man who falls in love with a pretty girl while being pursued by the town harlot. Here he doesn’t fall in live with one or two women, but romances three, count ‘em, of them.

13. Elvis is a singing racing car driver. Incredibly, the thing isn’t called Deja fuckin’ Vu. Elvis again has three women to choose from, as he did in movie (12) which preceded this one (the morals had loosened, evidently). And they have some pretty ordinary jobs: drummer, self-help author, heiress…

14. Elvis is a singing heir (to a rich Texas oilman) who roughs it a bit as a waterski instructor (doing it fully clothed!). Among his clients is a woman who is looking for a rich husband. Oh, the hilarious complications that arise when Elvis falls in love. How will Elvis get out of this one?

15. Elvis is an occasionally singing photographer of of stylish advertisements and of nudie pics (nobody showed the Colonel that script, I bet) who experiences psychedelic trips involving people in dog costumes (actually, was Tom Parker at all awake?). Yup, there is a love interest, seeing as you ask.

16. Elvis is a singing US soldier who falls in love with a dancer and sings a German folk song to a puppet.

17. Elvis is a ghetto doctor who doesn’t sing an awful lot. But he falls in love. With a nun. Oh naughty Elvis. But how could he know of her profession when she was swanning about in civvies. There isn’t even a happy ending: we never learn whether the nun, played by a TV legend, goes with Big El or returns to the convent. No wonder this was the last Elvis movie (a couple of documentaries apart).

18. Elvis is a singing insurance salesman who moonlights as a lion tamer and falls in love with the circus clown’s daughter.

The movies were mostly terrible (and yet strangely alluring in a camp sort of way), and not infrequently so was the music. Still, there were some stomping numbers, none more so than Bossa Nova Baby (watch great the excerpt from Fun In Acapulco here) with its sample-worthy keyboard line. Here are a few fine songs from Elvis movies:

Bossa Nova Baby
Written by the legendary Leiber & Stoller, who just a decade earlier had written Hound Dog and other R&R classics, it was first recorded in 1962 by Tippie & the Clovers, whose version the song’s composers preferred over Elvis’. Presumably Tippie’ take actually resembled the sound suggested by the title, which Elvis’ version assuredly does not. I cannot testify to the merits of Tippie & the Clovers’ recording, but what Elvis sings here is not so much a novelty number than Elvis taking a novelty number and turn it into a work of near-genius.

I Want To Be Free
A song, also by Leiber & Stoller, that hints at Elvis’ affection for gospel from Jailhouse Rock. It has been an Elvis favourite of mine since I first heard it on 4-disc set of our boy’s rock ‘n’ roll recordings which I bought when I was 12.

What’d I Say (link fixed)
Elvis might have gone soft on us after returning from the army, but on his version of this Ray Charles hit, he rocks out. From 1964’s Viva Las Vegas, it was the b-side of the excellent title track. (link fixed)

Return To Sender
From 1962′ Girls Girls Girls, Return To Sender sounds like it might have featured in a pre-army movie. In fact, it sounds like a good companion piece to King Creole. It was co-written by Otis Blackwell who had previously written All Shook Up, Don’t Be Cruel, Fever (all recorded by Elvis) as well as Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls Of Fire.

What A Wonderful Life
From 1962’s Follow That Dream, in which Elvis plays a singing son of a vagabond heading down Florida way et cetera. This song is a perfect fusion of rock ‘n’ roll Elvis and Cheesy Movie Elvis.

And for good measure, Sammy Davis Jr’s cover version of In The Ghetto, from Elvis final acting job. It must be heard to be believed. What was Sammy on? What bet did he lose? What did poor In The Ghetto ever do to him? The great Sammy, speaking the lyrics mostly, is totally out of synch with his backing singers, probably confused by the bombastic arrangement. Mindblowingly bad and thoroughly entertaining. And the last line… damn! DIG!
Sammy Davis Jr – In The Ghetto

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