When Presley is the center of attention, filmmakers have either narrowed their focus \u2013 his Vegas years for the 1981 TV movie Elvis and the Beauty Queen<\/em>, his 1970 meeting with Richard Nixon for the 1997 TV movie Elvis Meets Nixon<\/em> and 2016\u2019s Elvis & Nixon<\/em> \u2013 or chosen the soup-to-nuts approach. This is the case with the Colonel Tom Parker-approved docudrama This Is Elvis<\/em> from 1981, the 2005 Elvis<\/em> miniseries starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Luhrmann\u2019s maximalist extravaganza, which is told from Parker\u2019s point of view. The one that beat them all to the sequined punch, however, is 1979\u2019s Elvis<\/em>, directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell in his breakout role \u2013 one that led to an Emmy nomination for his performance and four more collaborations between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Elvis<\/em> came along, Russell was best known for the string of live-action Disney films he starred in from the mid \u201960s to the mid \u201970s. (This is echoed by the early career of Luhrmann\u2019s Elvis, Austin Butler, who logged time on various Nickelodeon, ABC Family, and Disney Channel sitcoms.) Carpenter\u2019s track record was nowhere near as long, but he had Halloween<\/em> and the TV movie Someone\u2019s Watching Me!<\/em> \u2013 both released in the fall of 1978 to success and acclaim \u2013 in the can when he accepted the directing assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working from a teleplay by producer Anthony Lawrence, who has previously co-written three of the King\u2019s \u201960s films, Carpenter and Russell hit the ground running, pulling off the complicated shoot in 30 days. Apart from a handful of scenes of Elvis as a boy (getting his first guitar, visiting the grave of his twin brother, Jesse Garon, being called a \u201cmama\u2019s boy\u201d by a bully), Russell convincingly portrays Elvis from high school, where he emphatically doesn\u2019t fit in, to Las Vegas, where he isn\u2019t sure he wants to. \u201cI ain\u2019t no Andy Williams, man,\u201d Elvis moans, but with so much riding on his first live performance in close to a decade, he has plenty of reasons to be nervous \u2013 including death threats \u2013 and cause to shoot out the television in his hotel suite. This is the event the whole film circles back to, marking his 1969 debut at the International Hotel as one of many turning points in his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the space of two-and-a-half hours, Elvis<\/em> covers the major milestones in Presley\u2019s life, from his first public performance at a high school talent show (encouraged by his first serious girlfriend) to cutting his first record at Sun for Sam Phillips (Carpenter regular Charles Cyphers) to his band\u2019s disappointing audition at Nashville\u2019s Grand Ole Opry. Feeling the sting of rejection, Elvis petulantly breaks his guitar backstage (fade out, go to commercial), but it\u2019s not long after that the film introduces Pat Hingle\u2019s Colonel, whose efforts to take his new act national put stress on Elvis\u2019s relationship with the most important person in his life: his mother Gladys (Shelley Winters, all maternal love and concern).<\/p>\n\n\n\n What matters most in Carpenter\u2019s Elvis<\/em> is his personal relationships, not just with Gladys (who he\u2019s constantly trying to please by buying her things, including Graceland), but also his father Vernon (played by Russell\u2019s real-life father Bing), his best friend Red (Robert Gray) and the rest of the \u201cMemphis Mafia,\u201d and, of course, the second love of his life, Priscilla (Season Hubley), who comes into it not long after Gladys leaves it. (Hubley, meanwhile, married Russell one month after the film\u2019s premiere.) Once the Colonel sets Elvis on the road to superstardom, he effectively fades into the background, making the deals that keep his meal ticket in Hollywood throughout the \u201960s, churning out frothy musical after frothy musical when what he really wants to do is get up in front of audiences again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Luhrmann\u2019s film goes into detail about the Colonel\u2019s machinations that prevented Presley from going on tour and seeing the world \u2013 and kept him in residency at the International long after it was clear that was a death trap \u2013 Carpenter and Lawrence let Russell\u2019s Elvis go out on a note of triumph, not as the bloated, drug-addicted nostalgia act he would become, but as a vibrant, electric performer in his prime. A mere 18 months after his untimely death, that is assuredly the Elvis his fans wanted to remember. \u201cElvis\u201d isn\u2019t on any streaming services, but it can be purchased from <\/em>Shout Factory<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/elvis2-1024x666.jpg\")
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