Review of Viva Las Vegas

Elvis was before me, or at least I felt like he was. I was part of that group of kids who discovered rock music when the Beatles landed. So even though Elvis was still on the scene and having hits, I tended to think of him in the same way I thought of Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. Previous generation's music, old hat, passé. And aside from the occasional single that caught my ear and made me think, "hmm, not bad," that's pretty much how my perception stayed, until he died. Then I thought I'd give him a second chance. So I took a crash course in Elvis. Went out and bought a bunch of his albums, from the earliest to 'Moody Blue.' Even watched a bunch of his movies, which I wouldn't have been caught dead doing before. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I found a lot to like. My own quirky tastes led me to enjoy his sixties music, especially the singles from the films, more than his earlier and supposedly 'purer' songs. And one of the things I found that I liked most about Elvis was his attitude; he didn't take himself seriously at all. A lot of high-minded music and film critics thought he was goofy, but guess what? So did he. And he was a movie star, for over a decade. Maybe an Elvis expert can tell me some day why he kept churning out essentially B-movies year after year when he should have issuing classic rock albums and standing at the pinnacle of popular music. Did he think he could do both, or was doing both? Or maybe it gets back to that 'attitude' thing again, that he just didn't give a damn. So then, 'Viva Las Vegas.' Probably the quintessential sixties Elvis flick. As with all of his vehicles, the plot doesn't bear close scrutiny, but in this case, he's a race car driver who's trying to raise money to fix his race car, so he winds up in Las Vegas and fools around with Ann-Margret. Makes sense to me. Thanks to some reliable old movie hands, like director George Sidney, and a VERY energetic Ann-Margret, 'Viva Las Vegas' is a cut above Elvis' other films from the period. The energy level is high and the musical numbers are very entertainingly staged. In fact, if I were to pick a single sequence in any of the movies to illustrate Elvis' appeal, it would be the set-piece given 'C'mon Everybody.' It is so great and so goofy, it sums up everything there is to love about Elvis in a little over two minutes. He is the epitome of cool, his dance moves elegantly effortless and supremely silly at the same time. It really is as though he doesn't even have to try, once the music's on, Elvis is on and you can't take your eyes off him, no matter how hard Ann-Margret tries to provide distraction. As he struts, slinks and stomps across the stage, singing those immortal lyrics-

Ain't nothing wrong with longhair music

Like Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach

But I was raised with a guitar in my hand

And I was born to rock!

-you just KNOW you're watching the King of Rock 'n Roll. Elvis Presley's films exist outside the world of the sixties as most remember them; there are no real hippies and no attempts at psychedelia. In the party scenes where Elvis inevitably gets up and sings, the men look like insurance salesmen and the women all seem to be refugees from Hefner's Playboy Mansion. They didn't come across as 'hip' even at the time. But 'Viva Las Vegas' infuses the insular Elvis formula with jolts of star-powered electricity and its own kind of rock and roll energy, propelling it above the rest and reminding us why that peculiarly American rock icon, Elvis Presley, still occupies a unique place in our culture, heart, and soul.