Axeman wrote:Ray wrote:Sheila
When you buy This Is Elvis you get 2 versions in the one package, the theatrical version (that is the version only ever shown in the cinema back in 1981...not seen on TV or video ever) and the 'video' version which has been shown on TV in many edited versions.
I'm sure I saw the theatrical version on TV here in the States in 1982-3. It was not out on video yet as I recall, which is why I made a point of watching it!
Axe
To my recall, the original television broadcast on cable TV's "HBO" was indeed the theatrical version. I saw this in '81 or '82, where it ran repeated all month. My older brother had just come back from California, where he'd seen the move in the theater and bought the double-LP along with a fold-out poster of the movie advertisement.
Anyway, as we watched it on HBO: he told me" Hey, they cut this scene!" The scene was reacting to was the scene where they added a cleaned-up "man that girl I was with last night...she could raise the dead.."
I was a little young to be hearing about this, I knew he couldn't be making it up... Other than that, I think HBO showed it as-is. In fact, it was often shown during the daytime, so I think HBO (pre-Monica Lewinsky/ Bill Clinton) felt the need for a tamer comment for daytime TV, even on cable.
rickeap wrote:I recall people cheering in the cinema after Elvis' 77 version of My Way.
The use of Love Me was a disgrace
rick
That's great! In our household, we also watched it with a twin sense of incredible sadness and yet also triumph.
And you're right: The "Love Me" add-in was truly a debacle. There's a twin sense of total sadness in "Are You Lonesome Tonight," watching him labor through this song with attempted humor and yet that sweetness comes through with his sense of "yeah, I'm a mess but stay with me people." It's a great cinematic moment,actually, though undeniably tragic, most of all.
It never should have been cut. I'd love to know whose idea this was? Did Solt like this change? What a joke.