How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Justin
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How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#413790

Post by Justin »

Did anyone watch any of Elvis' movies in theatres back when they were released in the 60's? Did you know anyone who actually loved those movies and watched them all as they were released? Did you know any friends or fans that absolutely kept up with every single move that came out?

I'm reading Careless Love at the moment and I'm reading about the successes that Elvis' movies made. I mean it seemed that the supply met the demand: the studios liked the $$ it brought in and the audience kept coming back. Did people back then know how bad they were? Did anyone at all question the quality of those films back then, like how we think of them today?

I was just thinking...if I were around in those days...I wonder how many of Elvis' movies I'd actually go see. I'd prolly see his first 3 or so but then realize the direction the movies were going and eventually stopped going. It just baffles me that Elvis did so many of those movies even though he loathed them. I'm surprised people kept paying money to see them, too.




Rob

Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#413795

Post by Rob »

The only films I ever saw in theaters when they were first released were, "That's The Way It Is" and "This Is Elvis." I don't know how I missed "Elvis On Tour."

During the 1960's, I was just a little bitty kid.




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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by chris j »

I remember a whole cinema full of kids singing the Wo oh ohs with Elvis in Frankfurt Special.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Liverbobs »

I used to watch them in the early 70's when I was a little biddy kid, they used to be on a lot on the Saturday afternoon matinee, they also showed TTWII and On Tour just after he died, that was both great and heartbreaking at the same time.


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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by KiwiAlan »

Began watching with Love me Tender. Watched Loving You 5 times in a row. Queued for 90 minutes to get into the first showing of Jailhouse Rock.

Continued watching every release but with much less vigor. Frankie and Johnny killed the joy for me.

Some of his later tradegies like Stay Away Joe never made to the big screen.


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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Cryogenic »

I've never seen an Elvis movie on the big screen. However, a year or two ago, I think it was SKY TV that were doing a series of adverts which were shown at the cinema, one of which featured Elvis singing "Suspicious Minds" from TTWII -- so cool! That's the only "big screen" Elvis moment I've yet experienced.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by TCB TED »

I watched "This is Elvis" the week it came out, on the big screen.
The theater was full, and people spontaneously applauded when Elvis first
appeared on the big screen, a little ways into the movie.
I saw the movie two weeks later, and the theater was about 2/3 empty.
It looked to me like the feature film lost momentum very quickly, at least in Toronto.




JerryNodak

Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#413856

Post by JerryNodak »

Starting with G.I. Blues in '60 (I was 10) I saw them all in the theater at their time of release. Sure I knew people who loved them. Heck, I even ran into people who never ceased in telling me how bad they were, but were always at the next one.




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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by rickeap »

I saw Clambake in a theatre in the early 70s and quite a few double features at my local drive-in. My first real connection with Elvis was going to the drive-in with a fan friend to watch TTWII. Pol Salad Annie turned me from Elton John etc to Elvis and I never looked back.
I also enjoyed John Carpenter's Elvis in the cinema (loved it when people taped their feet during his solo Sweet Caroline) and This is Elvis in a Melbourne cinema where his 1977 performances got the biggest cheers!
Rick



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#413989

Post by Justin »

Thanks for the responses---very intersesting to hear about people's pasts and histories. I began to imagine what would happen if I had a time machine and went back to the 60's...would I really watch every one of his movies...

I guess I have to realize that those movies were the only way to see our guy E...he wasn't doing anything else so these movies would be the only way. I'd prolly see one or two...but not eagerly wait for the next one.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by bajo »

One thing is for certain! Elvis' Hollywood years had impact up to and including Tickle Me. From then on the Beatle mania had set in and Elvis followed with Harum Scarum, Frankie And Johnnie and Paradise, H.S.
There was a turning of the tide right there, at least here in Norway. The cinemas used to be packed when an Elvis movie came to town. The last one I remember which went to standing room only was Tickle Me.


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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Ricky »

My first two, Speedway & Double Trouble were at the drive-in theater with my Mom. First runs later were Elvis On Tour and THWII.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Barbie »

I first saw Elvis in Love Me Tender - the theatre was FULL of screaming girls...........they were on their knees in the aisles............I was only 8 and couldn't believe it!! I thought mmm Elvis was cute and sang great.........I'd only heard Hound Dog/Don't be cruel............that was it for me.........I stayed for 3 shows and went home to a frantic mom wondering were I was for so long...........THAT was it for me - I saw every movie from then on............GI Blues and Blue Hawaii were played at a New Years event at the theatre and it was FULL!!!!! I remember watching It Happened At the Worlds Fair and somebody yelled during "how would you like to be" - Elvis what the hell are you doing???!!! The shows started dwindling I thought after Harum Scarum.......Elvis looked so good but what krap.............I saw every movie in the theatre in Victoria Canada and always hoped they would get better!!!.............we thought Change of Habit was great but that was the end of Elvis' scripted movie career.............then onto those fantastic live shows............thank god they filmed TTWII and EOT..........looking back lots of the movies were not the best but we have our Elvis to look at thru the years is a positive...BUT.......I still think it hurt his career doing all those krappy ones...........kind of a joke with non-fans.........why did he do them they ask.............I have to explain to them about all the signed contracts............blah blah............Elvis should have dumped the Colonel in the early 60's when things started going wrong I think..................but how can we change it now.................that's just the way it is.............




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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by ekenee »

I am too young to have seen Elvis in the 60's but they did show "spinout" on a big screen in my school at the auditorium in 1973. I saw " this is Elvis" in 1981.
I had the chance to see several of films from 1977-80, as they showed them at the local oldies revival theatre here in town. But I never went to see them because they always showed his films on television so I didn't bother going. Big mistake.




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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#414049

Post by Luuk »

Only after I got a regular job when I was 15 and had been a fan for about 3 years I was able to go to the cinema and watch Elvis movies. In those days it was an "experience". You had to go to the cinema, buy a ticket, leave your coat, go into the theatre and wait for the lights to dim while listening to Elvis music. Then watch the news, commercials, movie shorts, the trailer for next week's movie and then finally the Elvis movie you came to see.
It was the only way to see Elvis. No Elvis on TV (except an occasional segment in a programm about music or about rock and roll or about bad teenage behaviour) and certainly no VHS or DVD!!!!!!!
On thursdays the newspaper published the list of all movies showing in theatres so during lunchbreak you'd run through this list to check if an Elvis movie was showing near or in your town. Saw them all in the theatre except Loving you and King Creole. So in 1969 I travelled to Leicester's Elvis Convention to see Loving you (and meet Ger Ryff and his brother Lodewijk) and in 1970 to Versailles to see King Creole (and meet my long time girlfriend).
Change of habit was not shown in the theatre but I saw it at an Elvis Convention. At the Dutch Elvis Conventions in the 1980's "outtakes" from the 1968 show and the early TV performances were shown on big screen thanks to the late John Brus and his connections to people who had access to this type of material.
These days watching Elvis movies is a completely different experience but not as exciting as in the 1960's. You see every little "mistake", the stories are corny, the co-stars not as attractive as when I was a young man, there is no "atmosphere" with friends and family phoning halfway through the movie and worst of all you do not get in touch with other fans. They are on the other end of a computer-connection nowadays. :smt006




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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#414051

Post by jbgude »

Those were innocent , good times : I was in a boarding school( we lived in the school itself) and remember having to get dressed to go on " liberty" - school uniform/ shiny shoes ! The movies changed every Friday unless it was a big hit and every three months or so there used to be " Elvis movie" - usually the theatres showed a couple of " Coming attractions" or the newspapers gave a list of all the movies showing in town. An Elvis movie usually came with the promise of fun, pretty girls( preferably in bikinis) and the music, and for many - the almost mandatory cartoons - Tom & Jerry or Woody Woodpecker....

There was no TV where I lived till the 70's , so movies were the only major form of enetrtainment: sadly with Elvis movies after 67 or so the theatres were half empty,except perhaps a Satrurday afternoon.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by PEP »

My first encounter seeing a Elvis movie at a Theater was "Kissen Cousins", then it wasn't until "Frankie & Johnny" came out that I got to see Elvis again in another movie, then what followed was "Easy Come, Easy Go" for me. All of these first three movies were seen from what I remember during their initial release.

What I also remember on these three occasions was that there were what seemed like tons of people waiting to get in to see these movies, especially for "Easy Come Easy Go" which may have seemed strange, but it is what I remember. I remember people were lined up around the block for this one.

"Roustabout" I saw for the first time at the one of the public schools in our area, this was shown on a 16mm movie projector.

It wasn't until "Stay Away Away Joe" that I noticed Elvis wasn't the hit maker anymore, as this movie was brought over to a much smaller an older theater and the line ups were not there anymore.

Ironically for me anyway, I personally didn't like the movie "Stay Away Joe" when it first came out as that was not the type of Elvis I expected to see on the screen when I was as young as I was at the time, yet as I got older this movie has proven to be one of my favorite Elvis movies.

I remember as a young teenager one of the older theaters in the city started having Saturday matinee's where I got to see many double features of Elvis movies in one sitting, like "Double Trouble", "Speedway", "Spinout", "Charro", "Trouble With Girls", "Change Of Habit", "Live A Little Love A Little", Harum Scarum" and TTWII.

Speaking of TTWII I first saw this at a drive in theater and a few times in a movie theater as well.

For "Elvis on Tour" I saw this at a theater when it first came out, tho I should mention I don't remember seeing a lot of people going to this one.

The Elvis movies "Love Me Tender", "Loving You", "Jailhouse Rock", "King Creole" and so many others I would only get to see after Elvis died and only on TV or by owning the movies.

The first time I saw "King Creole" was when I went out an bought a 8mm film of the movie and bought a sound projector to play the movie, I wore out that movie and sold both the movie and the projector soon after Beta video machines were introduced.

The Last Elvis movie I saw in the theater was "TTWII Special Edition" and special it was, that was some night !

PEP 8)




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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by TONY »

Cryogenic wrote:I've never seen an Elvis movie on the big screen. However, a year or two ago, I think it was SKY TV that were doing a series of adverts which were shown at the cinema, one of which featured Elvis singing "Suspicious Minds" from TTWII -- so cool! That's the only "big screen" Elvis moment I've yet experienced.
Why didn't you go and see and support "TTWII" special edition when it was doing the rounds in 2001??! It is a different experience on the big screen. I went 8 or 9 times and, being a UK fan club branch leader, even arranged to have it shown at a local cinema in Hemel Hempstead where we had prizes to give away. A great attendance.




Swithin StCleeve

Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#414065

Post by Swithin StCleeve »

TONY wrote:Why didn't you go and see and support "TTWII" special edition when it was doing the rounds in 2001??!
That was cool. I was at the premire in Leicester square. Walked down the red carpet, crowds behind the barriers. all that.
Posh do, all the soap stars were there (but I don't watch soaps so I can't list them). But Frank Skinner and Bill Wyman I did recognise. There was a party after and more stars turned up it was all groovy with free wine and raw fish on little cracker buisuits.
Roger Semon was there, nice chap.
Saw TTWII-SE locally about five times after that.

Apart from that, This Is Elvis a couple of times when I was a nipper, Frankie & Johnny and Kid Galahad when they were screened in Telford in the nineties, and that's about it.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by ColinB »

I can't claim to have seen them all at the cinema.

I saw all the early ones.

But in the mid 60's, a combination of factors like, no spare cash, a young family, problems finding baby-sitters and a dip in the quality of the films, led to me missing a few then.

But later, I was at the Leicester Square UK premiere of Elvis On Tour, and that was a great night !


Colin B
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Richard Palmer

Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#414083

Post by Richard Palmer »

TCB TED wrote:I watched "This is Elvis" the week it came out, on the big screen.
The theater was full, and people spontaneously applauded when Elvis first
appeared on the big screen, a little ways into the movie.
I saw the movie two weeks later, and the theater was about 2/3 empty.
It looked to me like the feature film lost momentum very quickly, at least in Toronto.
I saw it in New York and there were about half a dozen people in the cinema. I don't think it had been out very long, I know it hadn't been released here in England at that time.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Elvis_Priestly »

Going to see Elvis movies in the 60's is one of my mum's stories. She was 12 in 1960 and remembers during her early teenage years the Saturday rush to the cinema by the girls of her home town for the matinee. This was a fairly provincial town in Northern Ireland at the time and Saturday was Elvis day for the teenagers.
I asked her about the scripts and stuff and she just looks at me and says they didn't care or notice. If the script had been of serious quality they wouldn't have noticed anyway she says because who could hear the dialogue with the screams that erupted every time Elvis appeared. They did boo and throw things at the screen as well though - but that was only when Elvis Kissed the girl or someone did something to Elvis. It sounds like it was great entertainment for that new generation called "teenagers" and something they remember.

My sister and I remember Elvis movies from the BBC2 Saturday matinee series which must have been in the late 70's? I remember every Saturday of that time the two of us sitting down and watching them after the morning trip into town with mum and our crisps and juice while mum did her weekend chores. That's two generations of my family at least who have great memories of the films.
And now a third, my two year old nephew loves G.I. blues and Elvis making the baby's sleep!

Now I have nearly all the films on dvd. I confess I put them on now when I'm feeling tired and have a nap on the sofa with them on in the background. Relaxing fluff and fortunately when I'm feeling dozy my brain hasn't the energy to engage in a critical analysis of the weak story lines or all the other marks of "sophistication" which accompany the transit into being an adult. Tickle Me kept me awake because I enjoyed the comedy in it and Elvis is a great comic actor. Change of Habit was good and seemed like a great film for him to finish with and his teenage audience to move on from (even considering using it in the paris confirmation course - so many issues and things which 40 years later are still relevant) - the only one I've switched off was Charro with a "c'mon Elvis quit checking under the lamp and give us a song!"

On the big screen I had the great pleasure of seeing two films this year in the best possible location - on the lawn at Graceland during Movies and Music in Elvis Week. Viva Las Vegas and TTWII. The C'mon Everybody scene from VVL is fantastic big screen. For both films, hearing the cheers for Elvis made me think of a little provincial town 40 and more years ago and me sitting where I was watching them - "we've come a long way baby!"


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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Marko »

The only Elvis movie I have seen on a big screen is Blue Hawaii. This was in the early 80's when my local movie theather was showing a lot of old movies (I remember seeing The Ten Commandments there too and being very impressed). I was just a school kid and seeing Elvis on a big screen was a thrill. There were a lot of empty seats though.


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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

#414156

Post by Rob »

Barbie wrote:I remember watching It Happened At the Worlds Fair and somebody yelled during "how would you like to be" - Elvis what the hell are you doing???!!!
You need to hold down the noise in the movie theaters, Doc.



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Re: How many watched Elvis' movies in theatres?

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Post by Cryogenic »

TONY wrote:
Cryogenic wrote:I've never seen an Elvis movie on the big screen. However, a year or two ago, I think it was SKY TV that were doing a series of adverts which were shown at the cinema, one of which featured Elvis singing "Suspicious Minds" from TTWII -- so cool! That's the only "big screen" Elvis moment I've yet experienced.
Why didn't you go and see and support "TTWII" special edition when it was doing the rounds in 2001??! It is a different experience on the big screen. I went 8 or 9 times and, being a UK fan club branch leader, even arranged to have it shown at a local cinema in Hemel Hempstead where we had prizes to give away. A great attendance.
I wasn't an Elvis fan then and didn't know about "That's The Way It Is".

I've seen precisely one re-release at the cinema -- "Alien" (The Director's Cut). And while the print was marvelous, the subtle sound experience was ruined by a noisy nightclub below. Sound-proofing? What's that? Good cinema-going? What's that? I dunno .... if it's not mobile phones going off or people talking, it's something else these days. Still, I'd have done my best to see TTWII if I was into EP at the time, and I'll keep a close watch-out for any future releases of his stuff.


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