Watched Blue Hawaii—the Elvis Hawaii movie—last night.
Another fascinating example of cultural drift, this one rises to the level of Dadaism.
Nothing anyone does or says makes any sense. Motives and mores that don’t feel so much dated as foreign. Watch it sideways, watch it upside down, watch it any way you want: it’s barely intelligible alien quirk.
Elvis’ makeup enhances this unwordly effect by reducing his face to the specular sheen of a Toy Story character.
@nicole I don’t think I’ve ever watched an Elvis movie. I know in Roustabout, after he gets hired, Elvis says something like, “Never worked as a carney before,” only to have Barbara Stanwyck spin around and indignantly declare, “We’re not carneys! We’re roustabouts!”
@nicole my dad was in the army in Germany at the same time as Elvis, but not in the same unit. He knew some people that served with Elvis, and by all accounts he was genuinely a nice guy, and never put on airs.
@jonathankoren he seems affable enough in the film. It’s just that the film is a delusion.
@nicole All films are a delusion. That’s the magic of Hollywood. ;)