Douglas Brode; McFarland & Company, Publishers; 2006; Softcover; 311 pages; ISBN: 0786425261

Elvis' body of film work is one which usually sparks dismissive bemusement. Yet is it really of such inconsequence? While many film author's discuss the Elvis film within its commonly accepted prosaic framework, others dare to turn the argument upside down, shake out the cobwebs and don a new pair of glasses to reframe our focus. In so doing, film heretics like Douglas Brode offer a profoundly rich crystallisation and realisation of the changing realities which overtly and subtly constitute Elvis film. Douglas Brode's scholarly examination of the sub-layers and political themes of Elvis' 33 motion pictures is a resonant revelation. Stripping away the routine, brazen classification that the Elvis film was simply an escapist diversion devoid of meaningful qualities, Brode brings vibrant life to what is in actuality a complex body of film art replete with multi-layered meaning and motifs. The author adopts his own fresh classification system for Elvis' films, giving them a significance which traverses a broad and changing spectrum of the socio-political. Each film is examined in detail and also considered in the context of Elvis' full body of film work. Elvis may have originally died for our sins but in time he would again rock the establishment!

Brode reflects:

Mojo Nixon overstated the situation when he argued that "Elvis wiped out four thousand years of Judeo-Christian uptightness about sex in fifteen minutes of TV". Still, that statement offers something of the situation's reality, as Elvis' TV appearances

intimidated the adults of America and drove their kids into a frenzy. Parents said Elvis was suggestive, lewd, a greaser. To kids that was just the point...He used his music as an open invitation to release, and [young people] took him up on it.

Many will enjoy the author's discussions on changing sexual politics in the Elvis film and its reflection of changing social mores. Similarly, when the author raises elements of religiosity, the Playboy type character, the changing face of villainy in the 60s, and race, our minds are opened to a plane of thought the misinformed would generally have us scoff at.

To fully understand Brode's argument the reader needs to place Elvis in several guises, using an underlying vision of Elvis as ancient mythic hero incarnate, a concept readily apparent in society's ongoing fascination with him through daily references in both the media and everyday life. Once this is accepted, the logical course that the symbolic Elvis takes in his films flows satisfyingly from one idea to another. And when intersposed with its arrival at a time of radical transition from "one America to another", Elvis film work assumes a significance which in its own way makes sense of the tensions and inconsistencies its visual and narrative text contains.

Using Elvis' films as a mirror of the King's life, Brode observes:

Priscilla's autobiography reveals with touching honesty her deep desire to make sense of what went wrong with their marriage; she only needed to watch Double Trouble to discover her husband's open admission as to his obsession with underage girls.

Earlier in Elvis Cinema the author dissects the Elvis film character in the definitional construct of "poor white trash", lifting the bar for his analysis to a new level when discussing the Toby Kwimper character in Follow That Dream:

Even here, though, there's as much of Li'l Abner to Toby as Wyatt Earp. When the gangsters import hit men, Toby mistakes them for visiting hunters. An American innocent, this Candide of the canebrake unknowingly defeats them while trying to help what he believes to be likeable lost fellows. Elvis embodies a notion of the yokel as wise fool that cuts back through Al Capp's comic strips to the first Toby carciature from the twentieth century's early days.

Another salient argument surfaces in considering the re-invention of work and changing value systems in the early 60s: Follow That Dream illustrates [Malcolm] Forbes' thesis: Work was then being re-invented, both by white collar youth (Blue Hawaii) and blue collar (this film). Elvis' entire generation rebelled against 1950s consumerism and wanted to enjoy the process of getting rich as much as the rewards. In addition, Brode deftly argues a cogent case for the Elvis film as art. Placing it within the structural and defining elements of creative expression of self, social significance and semiotics, he offers an innovative view on its meaning in both a linear and lateral sense. In arguing for Elvis Cinema as art, he implicitly and explicitly is also talking about popular culture. It is an sad comment on society and media commentators that we often devalue those things which are not considered, politically, to have intrinsic value, yet which are the very things that provide meaning to, and motivational gel in our lives. Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture may sound as though it is high brow, and in one sense it is. However, what is particularly appealing about the author's narrative is that it is easily accessible to a spectrum of readers. Mixing innocence and primal change, Brode takes us on a fascinating journey to examine where the "reel" ends and the "real" begins.

Verdict: Douglas Brode's Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture challenges our preconceptions of what Elvis' film work was all about. It lifts our thinking beyond the prosaic and myth infused, and in so doing opens up our horizons to a wonderfully coherent and brightly technicolored filmic feast. Recommended.

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Quote:

"Elvis Presley is the supreme socio-cultural icon in the history of pop culture"

(Dr. Gary Enders)

Quote:

"Elvis is the 'glue' which holds our society together....which subconciously gives our world meaning"

(Anonymous)

Quote:

"Eventually everybody has to die, except Elvis"

(humorist Dave Barry)

Quote:

"He is the "Big Bang", and the universe he detonated is still expanding, the pieces are still flying"

(Greil Marcus, "Dead Elvis")

Quote:

"I think Elvis Presley will never be solved"

(Nick Tosches)

Quote:

"He was the most popular man that ever walked on this planet since Christ himself was here"

(Carl Perkins)

Quote:

"When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew I wasn't going to work for anybody...hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail"

(Bob Dylan)

Quote:

"When we were kids growing up in Liverpool, all we ever wanted was to be Elvis Presley"

(Sir Paul McCartney)

Quote:

"You can't say enough good things about Elvis. He was one of a kind"

(Johnny Cash)

Quote:

"And don't think for one moment he's just a passing fancy....he's got enough of it to keep him on top for a long time"

(R. Fred Arnold, Fury magazine, Aug 1957)

Quote:

"It isn't enough to say that Elvis is kind to his parents, sends money home, and is the same unspoiled kid he was before all the commotion began. That still isn't a free ticket to behave like a sex maniac in public"

(Eddie Condon, Cosmopolitan)

Elvis records reaching #2 & #3 on the Cashbox Pop Singles chart:

#2: A Fool Such As I (1959)

#2: A Big Hunk Of Love (1959)

#3: Hard Headed Woman (1958)

#3: One Night (1958)

#3: (You're The Devil) In Disguise (1963)

Elvis Facts:

Tickets for Elvis' show on March 29, 1957 in St. Louis cost $2.00 to $2.50

While in Germany Elvis was hospitalised with tonsillitis in October 1959

Despite being an illegal immigrant, photographic evidence shows Colonel Tom Parker traveled to Canada with Elvis in 1957

Elvis strongly believed there weren't enough good songs in King Creole to justify releasing a soundtrack album. RCA initially agreed, releasing two very successful EPs from the movie. A soundtrack LP eventually followed

During the 1960s Elvis had his own football team, Elvis Presley Enterprises, which played in the Memphis touch football league. In the 1962 final, EPE narrowly lost to Delta Automatic Transmission, 6-13

In Clambake, (Elvis) Scott Hayward's driving licence shows February 23, 1940...taking 5 years off Elvis' real age

In the 1970s Elvis was offered $5m to stage a concert in front of the Pyramids in Egypt. When the Colonel declined the offer, Saudi billionaires raised the offer to $10m