early May, 2005
Currently in the news: Songy/BMG UK's release of Elvis Presley singles
- "Elvis" starts out rockin', then loses its wiggle
By Kay McFadden
(Seattle Times, May 6, 2005)
In January 1969, Elvis Presley cut his last No. 1 tune, "Suspicious Minds." Just three weeks earlier, Frank Sinatra recorded a hit called "My Way." The songs are an extreme contrast: one about loyalty and entrapment, the other an anthem of independence. They're also a pretty fair gauge of where America's two greatest pop singers stood at the time, if not forever.
This weekend, CBS launches the miniseries "Elvis." It's part of a media blitz that's extraordinary even by sweeps standards. The promotional props include an Elvis book, Elvis CDs, Elvis magazine inserts, an Elvis category on "Jeopardy!" tonight and an "Elvis by the Presleys" documentary next Friday.
Yet the figure still generating worship and revenue after all these years was - if we believe CBS's fascinating and wildly uneven version - as much to be pitied for what he might have accomplished had he only asserted himself.
"Elvis," which airs on KIRO at 9 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Wednesday, follows Presley from his hardscrabble youth to 1968. The film was made with the full cooperation of the Presley estate and family, and the producers have conceived it as a classic show-biz tragedy of art and love vs. commerce and fame.
So firmly set in this tradition is "Elvis," older viewers will recall movies like "The Jazz Singer," and younger ones will think of "American Idol." The ingredients are remarkably alike and enduring, from weepy, supportive mothers to Faustian business managers to the penalty for straying too far from your roots.
The downside to this operatic approach is that Part 1 is far more interesting. Watching someone battle to the top is inherently better entertainment than watching him decline, especially if the overall conclusion delivers fizzle instead of bang. Sunday begins by breathing intimacy into the working-class Presley family's existence on the wrong side of the tracks in a mixed-race neighborhood in Tupelo, Miss. Later, they move to Memphis, Tenn. It's a small universe in which the word of Gladys (Camryn Manheim) is law, and she often overrides husband Vernon (Robert Patrick) in favor of their teenage son and only surviving child - you-know-who. Manheim and Patrick add grace to somewhat limited parts. But as has been proven since time immemorial and Vivien Leigh, English-speaking actors from across the Atlantic have an uncanny knack for playing Southern characters.
Irish star Jonathan Rhys Meyers ("Bend It Like Beckham") inherits the crown with an eerie evocation of the King, from his pouty good looks to his low-pitched drawl and deep-seated allure. Meyers does not attempt to put interpretive spin on Elvis, but profoundly inhabits him, exposing past Elvis imitations as parody.
Nearly on a par is Randy Quaid, who plays "Colonel" Tom Parker (hiss! boo!) like the former carnival barker he was: oily, beguiling and quick to turn mean. So snakelike is Quaid's Parker, you feel sorry for Sun Records' Sam Phillips (Tom Guinee). He hasn't a chance to keep his new discovery once Parker wants Elvis.
The arrival of Parker on the scene comes nearly halfway into Part 1, after some delightful scenes in which Rhys Meyers lip-synchs and dances to some early Elvis tunes performed at fairs and on the country music circuit in the mid-'50s. We get to see Elvis' fanatical belief in himself and his loyalty to others, qualities instilled by his parents.
But "Elvis" is not a psychological movie in the delving sense. It goes no deeper than a modern-day TV talent show, where each performer is assigned a simple back story and a handful of fixed traits.
That makes the series' main angle harder to comprehend. Why was Elvis doomed to sink under the burden of turning out cheap hits and bad movies? Why couldn't he eventually shake himself loose from Parker's influence and follow his own artistic sense?
When Parker tells Elvis to turn down a Katharine Hepburn-Burt Lancaster film because it's only a supporting part, the advice sort of makes sense. Presley is not yet established, and his singing appearances on TV are worth more at this point.
Later in Part 2, when Presley has made millions and is at the peak of his success, his willingness to let Parker bulldoze him off the role of Tony in "West Side Story" is appalling. A certain dull fatalism creeps into the script - one downside of stretching what might have been a dandy two-hour movie into a four-hour miniseries. There are other problems. In Part 2, we must endure Rose McGowan as Ann-Margret, an insult to "Viva Las Vegas" fans everywhere. With her squashed-pudding face, lisping delivery and appalling lack of sex appeal, McGowan is at best a debased Tina Louise.
Unfortunately, newcomer Antonia Bernath does not take up the slack as Priscilla Beaulieu. Virginity does not need to be vapid, but that is Bernath's take on it. Poor Elvis - no wonder he's more interested in hanging out with the guys in this movie.
For Elvis devotees, the Beaulieu romance does get some fleshing out. Priscilla was just 14 when Army Pvt. Elvis Presley met her at a party he hosted at his off-base digs in West Germany, and the situation required Byzantine and bizarre arrangements. The tricky logistics went on for years. Nevertheless, Parker had to kick-start Elvis into marrying Priscilla on the heels of a tempestuous affair with Ann-Margret, who had encouraged Presley to take charge of his career and introduced him to new music. In Part 2 of "Elvis," Parker shifts from canny tyrant to greedy bad guy. He is held accountable for the demise of Elvis' singing career and for Elvis' self-destructive behavior. For instance, Parker demanded 50 percent of royalties from any songwriter. As a result, Presley had less and less good material, since only desperate hacks agreed. At a time when the Beatles and Dylan were generating creativity and an aging Sinatra still could draw on the best pop composers and lyricists, Elvis was stuck with tripe.
Small wonder he had no No. 1 hits between 1960 and 1969. The movie also makes painfully clear his desire to be a legitimate actor, another dream Parker discouraged. Still, I wonder whether audiences will be satisfied with Parker as the chief explanation for what went wrong. Elvis might have been too much of a nice Southern gentleman to turn on his longtime manager, but he surely had a few deficiencies that got in the way, too. Unexplained are his pill-taking, his manic money spending and his insistence on surrounding himself with humble sycophants. Despite living outside Memphis, he had little contact with the music world there or in Nashville. His marital and familial relations with Priscilla and daughter Lisa Marie are treated enigmatically. Perhaps anticipating our bafflement, "Elvis" trumps up an apocryphal showdown in which Presley attempts to fire Parker. Parker threatens to sue him for millions in various back fees and commissions, and that is that. Elvis gives up.
The movie ends with a broken-spirited Presley singing "If I Can Dream." The moral of the story: Mother, don't raise your child to be an "American Idol." Unless, that is, you've got a good lawyer.
TV note: The documentary "Elvis by the Presleys" airs at 8 p.m. next Friday on CBS. It's worth checking out for the home movies and archival material. Included are new interviews with Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, Lisa Marie Presley and other family members.
- Elvis, cont.: Miniseries introduces him to newfans, but it's far from all right, mama
By Matthew Gilbert
(Boston Globe, May 6, 2005)
If you take CBS's word, little in pop culture is of more interest than Elvis Presley. We're all shook up about the King. Forget about the fact that Elvis Presley Enterprises is shrewdly re-asserting itself in the market, since Lisa Marie Presley recently sold most of her father's estate. Forget about the fact that CBS is pumping two Presley events, the two-part miniseries ''Elvis" and next week's documentary ''Elvis by the Presleys," to help win May sweeps.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Manufacturing interest is an art, though, and you have to hand it to Presley Enterprises, which just launched a webcam view from Elvis's Graceland bedroom. Now is the time not only for squeezing the remaining drops of interest out of Elvis fans but for extending the Elvis brand to a generation that wasn't born when the King died in 1977. Now's the time to introduce the power of the pelvis to a generation for whom anything short of an exposed nipple is boring.
''Elvis," which premieres Sunday night at 9 on Channel 4, won't knock the socks off either those already in love with Elvis or those who should be. The miniseries, which concludes Wednesday, lacks the electric performance essential to any great biopic, the model of which is still Judy Davis in ''Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows." It simply doesn't feature a leading actor able to bring new dimensions to a familiar public image. That the ''Elvis" script is a glut of clichés isn't the big problem; biopics are by definition doomed to reenact the highlights of a life shallowly. But without a galvanizing center, the movie is all just bioshtick.
Casting Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis was a bold move, and it misfires. Rhys Meyers's face looks like the young Presley's; yet there's a British glam aspect to it that leaves no room for Presley's backwoods innocence. Rhys Meyers has a hard physiognomy and an ironic eye that seem worlds away from the King. Rather than looking like a man who's discovering stardom, he projects the knowingness of someone who's been there already. His Southern accent is excellent, and he holds the screen during his lip-synched performances of master recordings. He does the best he can, but he's the wrong actor for the part.
''Elvis" traces Presley's career from its early days in Memphis to his 1968 comeback, almost 10 years before his death. Since it's an authorized movie, it doesn't go near the King's sad final days, the jumpsuit years. The focus is on Elvis's rise, his bond with his mother, his courtship of Priscilla (a bland Antonia Bernath), and his loyalty to friends. There are nods to his growing substance abuse and depression. But generally the movie enacts the familiar ''Behind the Music" arc minus the tragic fall. It's a corporate product that resists the very thing that made Elvis: controversy.
Camryn Manheim brings interesting shadings to Elvis's mother, as she craves his success and fears its consequences. And Randy Quaid is effective as Colonel Tom Parker, who is portrayed as the villain. He exudes snakelike egotism as he packages Elvis for the masses, and his eyes betray contempt at Presley's desire to be a respected actor. Parker understands the power of bad press and that public shock at Elvis will make him a star. So he discourages his boy from aspirations that might help him grow as an artist and as a man. He makes Elvis, but he also breaks his spirit.
Late in ''Elvis," Rose McGowan shows up as Ann-Margret, distracting Presley during his romance with Priscilla. It's a silly detour that fails to create drama, and McGowan hardly conjures a sense of the actress. Like too much of ''Elvis," the scenes don't bring us closer to the man who forever changed pop. They merely serve as filler in a sweeps TV movie that needs to take up two nights of prime time.
- 'Elvis' captures the image, misses the King
By DAVE HOEKSTRA
(Chicago Sun-Times, May 5, 2005)
Elvis Presley wore mascara -- as early as 1954, when he opened for Slim Whitman in Memphis, Tenn. More than 300 books, countless movies and a hit Broadway play have been based on different shades of Elvis. I didn't know he liked mascara, but he is all gussied up in "Elvis," a four-hour CBS movie that begins Sunday and concludes Wednesday on WBBM-Channel 2.
By now, the key to making any Elvis project challenging is to tell us something we don't know. "Elvis" finds that nearly impossible. (Conversely, "Elvis by the Presleys," a two-hour special airing May 13 on CBS, features never-aired TV performances, home movies and interviews with daughter Lisa Marie Presley, ex-wife Priscilla Beaulieu Presley and other family members.) The miniseries soft-pedals Presley's life between 1952 -- when the teenage Elvis lived with his family in the Lauderdale Courts, a WPA housing project in Memphis -- and his legendary 1968 comeback special, also titled, simply, "Elvis." In four hours, we don't get a single taste of Jump Suit Elvis or even Hai-Karate Elvis. (Elvis Presley Enterprises is listed as creative consultants, and this is the first miniseries allowed to shoot scenes at Graceland.)
But what keeps the ball rolling are excellent performances from Jonathan Rhys Meyers ("Bend It Like Beckham"), who plays Elvis with firm dignity, and Randy Quaid, efficiently crusty as Presley's manager, Col. Tom Parker. Their performances are even more memorable considering that Patrick Sheane Duncan's script is strictly return-to-sender. By 1968, Elvis, looking a tad gaunt -- a la rock singer-songwriter Nick Cave -- is discussing his slumping career with Parker, and he sighs, "You can't polish a turd." Elvis also debates with comeback special director Steve Binder (Jack Noseworthy). Binder, who created "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" says, "It's 1968. The times they are a-changin'." It's this kind of dialogue that, in real life, helped drive the Elvis to an early grave.
Presley's conflict with Parker and his well-documented Oedipus complex are recurring themes. Camryn Manheim ("The Practice") is unremarkable as Gladys, Elvis' beloved mama, although her bad attitude after the family moves into Graceland scores high camp value. On a gloomy Memphis afternoon, Gladys is leaning on a fence post mixing diet pills with a cold beer, lamenting how she misses the camaraderie of Lauderdale Courts. With this cliched scenario, any attempts to remove moral judgments while observing Elvis World become a mission impossible.
But Parker's introduction to Elvis is a moment of beauty. The Colonel appears like the Wizard of Oz through a majestic swirl of cigar smoke and proclaims, "What do you want? Everybody's got a secret dream. I dream in Technicolor. I can sell the wino the sweat off a grape." This nicely dovetails with the conclusion in which Presley sings "If I Can Dream" from the comeback special. The film also deploys more than 20 Presley songs -- the first time his master recordings have been used in a biographical film.
Meyers, an Irishman, is diligent in capturing Presley's mid-South dialogue and trademark snarl. His best line comes during Presley's recollection of the at-birth death of his twin, Jesse. Presley attributes his lifelong affinity for rhythm to the sound of two hearts beating. And Meyers tries to maintain integrity toward his subject, despite having to endure more than 100 costume changes in four hours -- the kind of superfluous stuff that bogs down "Elvis."
Rose McGowan plays Ann-Margret in an exaggerated, breathy manner that recalls Marilyn Monroe. There's more Ann-Margret in this project than Presley's archrival Jerry Lee Lewis (once played by Dennis Quaid) or even the Jordanaires. Despite the fact that Ann-Margret gave Elvis a Bob Dylan record, the amount of time devoted to the Presley/Ann-Margret fling shows where "Elvis" is coming from.
It's also hard to believe Priscilla Beaulieu Presley allowed Antonia Bernath to portray her with the vacancy of a boarded-up Highway 61 motor lodge. Hardcore Elvis fans will love the bit parts; Rob Trevelier is mystically convincing as barber Larry Geller, who turns Elvis on to spirituality, and Robert Patrick captures the appropriate emotional distance of Presley's father, Vernon. But Tim Guinee's portrayal of Sun Records founder Sam Phillips is far too understated. I knew Sam Phillips, and Guinee has none of the wide-eyed fire and brimstone of the real man.
Even in the early appearances of the Phillips character, you begin to see the flaws of "Elvis." The movie looks good and sounds great. But "Elvis" does little to deeply humanize Presley or the colorful people who spun around his kinetic world.
- UNRELEASED ELVIS TRACK RELEASED BY TV MAGAZINE
(contactmusic.com, May 5, 2005)
Bosses of America's TV GUIDE magazine are cashing in on the latest ELVIS PRESLEY craze by giving away one of The King's lost recordings with their new issue. To mark the upcoming ELVIS TV mini-series, which will star Irish actor JONATHAN RHYS-MEYERS as Presley, the magazine's marketing team has uncovered a lost recording of YOUNG + BEAUTIFUL, recorded with The King's backing band THE JORDANAIRES. Meanwhile, the new issue of TV Guide features five different covers, which all feature shots of Presley.
- Talk of the Town: Priscilla and the Presley legacy
By Robert Fontenot
(oldies.about.com, May 5, 2005)
Okay, folks, here's this week's official moderator question... With the release of "Elvis By The Presleys" and all the other merchandising, do you think Priscilla Presley is doing a good job as caretaker of the King's legacy? Is she qualified to do so, and if not, can you think of someone better? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I've posed this week's question in the forum ... just click on the link to read the responses. If you'd like to add your own voice to the discussion, signing up is quick, easy, free, and painless!
- "Lawdy Miss Clawdy' - Elvis is everywhere
By Bill Keveney
(USA TODAY, May 5, 2005)
Elvis Presley fans should get ready for a King-size feast. During the crucial May sweeps ratings period, CBS is devoting more than a quarter of its prime-time schedule next week to the larger-than-life rock 'n' roll legend who died nearly 30 years ago. ...
- Elvis on screen and off
(nynewsday.com / Associated Press, May 5, 2005)
Piano virtuoso Liberace is shown playing the guitar with Elvis Presley at the piano in November 1956 at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. Both Liberace and Elvis were twins who lost their sibling at birth. Elvis kept up a longstanding correspondence with Liberace, says Peter Whitmer, a clinical psychologist and author of the 1996 psychological biography, "The Inner Elvis."
One of 8 photos
- LYIN' KING
By LINDA STASI
(New York Post, May 5, 2005) [subscription needed for full article]
Elvis Presley died in 1977, and in 2004 he had a No. 1 hit. Why? How? Because The King's music, which has been a soundtrack of American lives for nearly 50 years, is being recycled by yet another generation. Elvis was the hot ...
- TV Review: Elvis
By Barry Garron
(Yahoo! News / Reuters / Hollywood Reporter, May 5, 2005)
My guess is that if there was a movie about Elvis Presley produced with the full consent and authorization of the estate of his lifelong agent, "Col." Tom Parker, it would show that Parker made all the right decisions, was persuasive and not coercive, exercised fatherly concern at all times and only did what was in the best interest of his star client.
That movie doesn't exist. Instead, we have a miniseries about Presley stamped with the approval of his family and estate that, though not a whitewash, is nonetheless selective in its interpretation of the rock icon's life and career. That effort to shine the best possible light on Presley starts by ending the story in 1968, nearly a decade before the singer died of heart failure at age 42. Although he was only 33 when this miniseries fades to black, Presley's career was mostly over. What remained was playing Las Vegas, divorce from wife Priscilla and hospitalizations for taking more pills than even Rush Limbaugh could imagine.
So what the heck? It's a miniseries, not a documentary. Why not accentuate the good times when Presley was an ambitious, rubber-legged kid, innocent and exuberant, whose goal was to be "the man in the big house?" This, then, is not so much a story of why Presley became a sensation as how. The first part, told as a long flashback, concludes with his Army enlistment in 1957. Yes, it's a story that's been told many times during many sweep periods but director James Sadwith and writer Patrick Sheane Duncan keep it fresh and spirited, with assists from a hard-working cast and the use of Presley's masters for the music. And when you get to the part where you need to explain the dozens of mediocre movies and countless forgettable songs, well there's always penny-pinching, money-grubbing Parker to pin that on. ...
- Painful past experiences help: Camryn Manheim play Elvis' mother
By Phillip Zonkel
(U-Press Telegram, May 4, 2005)
During her 20s and 30s, Camryn Manheim endured a period of self-loathing, heartache and relationship mishaps related to her plus-size figure. Some of those painful feelings reared their ugly head but helped her tap into the role of Gladys Presley in the new CBS miniseries, "Elvis," which airs Sunday and Wednesday. "I have been on such an incredible journey of self-acceptance and self-empowerment that I sometimes think that all of (those negative feelings) are so far behind me or so covered up now and replaced with stronger and more positive feelings," says Manheim, a former Long Beach resident. "But when you get me down to New Orleans (where the miniseries was filmed) and put me in a little sun dress, which right there brings up some issues," she says chuckling, "no makeup and wig, you're not at your personal best. It's really easy to tap into those feelings of self-loathing and fear."
... As Presley's overprotective mother, Gladys, who died of a heart attack at age 42, Manheim says she had no problem playing the mother of the soon-to-be King of Rock and Roll. "Women of my age have been refusing to play mothers of 20-year-olds, even though we could be mothers of 20-year-olds and in many cases are mothers of 20-year-olds," says the 44-year-old Emmy Award-winning actress. "Women want to appear younger than they really are. I have been waiting for this day, when someone would let me play the mother of a teenager." Manheim says one thing has kept her from playing this sort of role: she's had a difficult time convincing the powers that be to cast her. ... "I find Camryn to be a very emotional actress who tears your heart out at times," says "Elvis" executive producer Howard Braunstein. "That's what I wanted to see in the Gladys character. I felt (that) emotionally she could reach those levels of Gladys." ...
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