This week we commemorate 49 years since the death of one of the world’s most influential cultural icons. At Elvis’s home at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, the annual candlelight vigil is expected, as always, to draw thousands of fans to celebrate his life and his profound and enduring contribution to pop culture.
And while Elvis’s music legacy remains iron-clad despite the almost five decades since his death, another element of Elvis’s career has largely fallen from public consciousness – his film career. The musician also had a lifelong ambition to be a movie star and as a teenager, he worked as an usher at a Memphis movie theatre so he could watch films and study the performances of his idols.
That dream did become a reality, and during the 1950s and 1960s Elvis evolved into an incredibly profitable movie star, racking up a filmography of more than 30 feature films. But his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, saw a different opportunity: capitalising on Elvis’s rising fame by featuring him in movies soundtracked by his own songs rather than in the more serious, complex roles he actually wanted to star in.
Elvis’s ultimate ambition was to win an Academy Award and prove his range as a dramatic actor. But the more successful his musicals became, the more Hollywood wanted to keep giving audiences the same winning formula, thus denying him the chance to develop as an actor.
Here, we’ve pulled together a roundup of some of Elvis’s most iconic film roles, which you can stream for free on Tubi right now.
Acting the part
• Love Me Tender (1956)
Clint Reno (Elvis) marries his older brother’s fiancee (Debra Paget) after he is presumed killed in the American Civil War. But when his brother (Richard Egan) returns, a bitter love triangle unfolds over a stash of stolen money and the woman they both love.
This was Elvis’s movie debut and his role had originally been much smaller.
However, at the time, his song Love Me Tender had become a huge hit, and producers realised they were sitting on a goldmine. To take advantage of the hype, his role was expanded and the title was changed from The Reno Brothers to reflect the hit song.
In an early screening of the film, the death of Elvis’s character caused his mother to sob uncontrollably. Elvis reportedly vowed never to die in a film role again.
(Love Me Tender is now available to stream on Tubi)
• Loving You(1957)
Delivery driver Deke Rivers (Elvis) is discovered by a music publicist (Lizabeth Scott) and country singer (Dolores Hart) who set out to turn him into a rock ‘n’ roll star. As his fame grows, Deke becomes torn between his ambitious manager and the woman who loves him.
The film was very much a fictionalised account of Elvis’s own rise to stardom. The song (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear was the standout track on the soundtrack, which spent 10 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. Elvis’s parents famously appeared in the final scene of the film, sitting among audience members.
His love interest, Hart, went on to become a successful actress but in 1963 left Hollywood behind to enter the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut and become a nun. She took her final vows in 1970 and still lives there today as Mother Dolores.
(Loving You is now available to stream on Tubi)
Getting serious
• King Creole (1958)
Danny Fisher (Elvis) drops out of school to support his struggling family and finds a new life as a singer in New Orleans’ French Quarter. But when a ruthless gangster tries to pull him into his criminal world, he must choose between a life of crime, his career and love.
This role was originally developed with James Dean in mind, with the character written as a boxer. But after Dean’s death in 1955, it was eventually offered to Elvis and the character was changed from a boxer to a singer. Elvis lost seven kilograms and shaved his iconic sideburns for the role and his fans swarmed the set and disrupted filming.
Colonel Parker insisted on including songs in the serious drama, reflecting his view that Elvis’s films be a vehicle to promote his recording career. Critics complained about the musical interruptions as a result but did acknowledge Elvis’s acting chops.
It was one of the clearest early signs that Elvis could actually act – and of the serious dramatic career he wanted to pursue.
(King Creole is now available to stream on Tubi)
• G.I. Blues (1960)
Army sergeant Tulsa McLean (Elvis) dreams of opening a nightclub when he returns home from being stationed in Germany, but first he needs to win a bet that he can charm beautiful cabaret dancer Lili (Juliette Prowse).
This was another film where art imitated Elvis’s own life – at the time, he’d been enlisted into the US Army and stationed in West Germany – giving audiences a chance to see their idol in uniform. Elvis was apparently disappointed with G.I. Blues after appearing in the more dramatic King Creole, but it was exactly the kind of lightweight musical comedy that Colonel Parker believed would make money, and it did.
During its production, Elvis was visited by royal fans, including Princess Margrethe of Denmark, Princess Astrid of Norway and Princess Margaretha of Sweden. His co-star, Prowse, was also engaged to singer Frank Sinatra at the time.
(G.I. Blues is now available to stream on Tubi)
• Flaming Star (1960)
Pacer Burton (Elvis), the mixed-race son of a white rancher (John McIntire) and a Kiowa woman (Delores del Río), is caught between two cultures as violence erupts between Native Americans and white settlers. Forced to choose where his loyalties lie, he struggles to protect his family as the conflict threatens to destroy them.
Elvis had two weeks of riding lessons before filming commenced and was thrown from a horse during training but wasn’t injured. This film was released around two months after G.I. Blues, and the reception to the two films couldn’t have been more different, with Flaming Star falling short of expectations on release.
But its legacy endured when artist Andy Warhol used a publicity photograph of Elvis from this film as the basis for his famous Elvis silk-screens, which include Single Elvis, Double Elvis, Triple Elvis and the enormous Eight Elvises.
(Flaming Star is now available to stream on Tubi)
The limitations of success
• Blue Hawaii (1961)
Returning from the US Army, Chad Gates (Elvis) rejects his wealthy family’s plans for his future and takes a job as a Hawaiian tour guide. But his new career, demanding mother (Angela Lansbury) and relationship with his girlfriend (Joan Blackman) become complicated when a group of young tourists turns his life upside down.
Thousands of fans turned out when Elvis arrived in Honolulu to shoot the film, with crowds reportedly nearly breaking through the barricades. Interestingly, Lansbury, who played the role of Elvis’s mother in the film, was aged just 36 and Elvis 26 at the time, which made for some very interesting casting. The soundtrack included Can’t Help Falling in Love, which became one of Elvis’s signature songs and was famously used by him to close many of his concerts in the 1970s.
The film proved to be a huge commercial success – but it also helped lock Elvis into the formula that would define the rest of his film career.
(Blue Hawaii is now available to stream on Tubi)
• Wild in the Country (1961)
Delinquent Glenn Tyler (Elvis) is given a chance to escape his troubled past when a psychiatrist (Hope Lange) discovers his talent for writing. But as Glenn becomes entangled with three very different women and a violent feud, his hopes of building a new life are put at risk.
While not originally meant to be a musical, Colonel Parker insisted that the film contain Elvis songs – the result is an uneasy compromise between a serious drama and a musical showcase. It is allegedly the only Elvis movie to lose money on its initial release. It was also his last real attempt to establish himself as a dramatic actor – Blue Hawaii’s success that same year suggested audiences preferred their idol in musical comedies instead.
Reviews for this film were mixed, but some critics, such as the Los Angeles Times, praised Elvis’s performance, describing it as a reasonably good melodrama and noting that Elvis was continuing to improve as a performer.
(Wild in the Country is now available to stream on Tubi)
[subhead] Follow the formula
• Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962)
Ross Carpenter (Elvis), a Hawaiian charter-boat skipper, dreams of buying his late father’s sailboat while earning extra money as a nightclub singer. When he’s caught between two women – wealthy Laurel (Laurel Goodwin) and nightclub singer Robin (Stella Stevens) – a romantic rivalry threatens his future plans.
Often seen as another attempt to recreate the success of Blue Hawaii, Elvis’s return to Hawaii, the location of his biggest hit, resulted in 8000 fans turning out to greet him. During the short journey from the helicopter to his hotel, Elvis lost a diamond ring, which was eventually returned after the young fan who’d found it contacted the hotel.
Apparently, Elvis wasn’t pleased with the increasingly shallow material he was being given and particularly disliked some of the novelty songs he was forced to sing for this film. The soundtrack’s best song, Return to Sender, was a huge success but wasn’t actually written specifically for the film.
(Girls! Girls! Girls! is now available to stream on Tubi)
• Kid Galahad (1962)
Fresh out of the Army and short of money, Walter Gulick (Elvis) takes a job as a sparring partner at a struggling boxing camp, where his natural strength makes him a promising professional fighter. As Walter prepares for the ring, he falls for the promoter’s sister (Joan Blackman) while the camp owner (Gig Young) hopes his winnings will save him from his gambling debts.
Elvis reportedly weighed close to 91 kilograms during filming and wasn’t happy about how he looked. To get into shape for the role of Walter, Elvis was trained by former world junior-welterweight champion Mushy Callahan and reportedly lost about 5.5 kilograms.
Blackman reunited with Elvis after the success of Blue Hawaii, in which she again played his love interest. The film did reasonably well and is a great watch. But wasn’t a major Elvis blockbuster.
(Kid Galahad is now available to stream on Tubi)
• Follow That Dream (1962)
When a family of squatters settles on a Florida beach, they build a makeshift home and fishing business despite attempts by local officials and gangsters to drive them away. Toby Kwimper (Elvis), a naive but resourceful young man, finds himself caught between protecting his family and falling for an orphan girl (Anne Helm) who lives with the family
The title originated from the Elvis song Follow That Dream and was shot on location in Florida. It’s reported that it was so hot on the beach that Elvis had to change his shirt up to 22 times in one day because he was sweating so heavily. The more intriguing story, however, came years later.
The late musician Tom Petty told OffBeat Magazine that when he was growing up in Florida, he saw Elvis during the film’s production and later recalled it as a “semi-religious experience”. He described Elvis’s hair as so black that the sunshine was glowing off of it, and said the experience helped spark his lifelong love of rock & roll.
(Follow That Dream is now available to stream on Tubi)
Elvis the actor
By 1968, the tried-and-true Elvis movie formula had grown stale, with box-office earnings slowing down. He released his final film, Change of Habit, in 1969, before effectively walking away from Hollywood to return to the more lucrative genre of live-music performance.
Elvis made a triumphant return to television with his NBC ‘comeback special’, Elvis, which revitalised his music career and led to high-paying concert tours and Las Vegas residencies.
Elvis ultimately did achieve his dream of becoming a movie star, with an impressive filmography to prove it. But that very success made him one of Hollywood’s most profitable leading men – and ultimately prevented him from becoming the dramatic actor he had aspired to be.