Viva Las Vegas (1964)

(L. A., Las Vegas and environs; contemporary)
IMDb

As we near the 30th anniversary of his death, I anticipate seeing a fair number of Elvis movies, provided to me by my Elvis fanatic sister. For the record my favorite Elvis movie is 1962's Follow That Dream. The plot of that movie involves Elvis as a hillbilly homesteader turned small town sheriff, who takes on a mob backed mobile gambling racket while fending off the romantic advances of a lady psychologist and his own adoptive sister. Yes, the movie is every bit as awesome as it sounds, and proves the rule of there being great camp value to most Elvis fair. This being the case, further perusal of the sub-genera seems worth some minimal effort.

For my first 30th anniversary selection I picked Viva Las Vegas from 1964. Here we have Elvis as a singing race car driver, and a plot involving missing money and a much needed motor. However this is purely a secondary detail, because as with most of Mr. Presley's films your not watching the thing for the plot. Women watch for the Elvis singing, mean for the Elvis love interests. In this case we have Ann-Marget in her prime as a swimming instructor (que bathing suites) and University student who seems to be majoring in modern dance (que yet more spandex outfits). Ann shakes, Elvis croons, and 90 minutes go by with nary a thing for the great William Demarest (here playing Ann's father) to do. Nicky Blair meanwhile evokes Maynard G. Krebs as Elvis's mechanic. As with most Elvis movies, there's really not a lot to analyses, just some totally inconsequential entertainment.