Back from army service Elvis made two films for Fox which attempted to stretch him - Flaming Star and this one - but neither particularly found favour with the public the way that Blue Hawaii and GI Blues did and so Elvis found himself trapped like a fly in celluloid amber.
Here he plays juvenile delinquent living in the backwoods who, in true Elvis form, lost his ma when he was a kid - he has a pa, but pa is mean, as is his brother, so Elvis is angry at the world - angry, you understand, so he punches the brother and winds up on parole. He's sent to work for his uncle, whose daughter (Tuesday Weld) is one of those cat on a hot tin roof baby dolls - married with a kid despite her youth and hot to trot for Elvis, which causes no end of concern for El's childhood sweet heart (Millie Perkins).
But actually Elvis' main romance in this film is with his shrink (Hope Lange) - making this his third film where he tangles with an older woman (four if you change "older woman" to "mentor figure" meaning you can include Jailhouse Rock), one of the less discussed aspects of Elvis movies. I wonder what prompted it? Sometimes the woman was a Col Tom Parker surrogate; maybe it was also simply a way of increasing Elvis' appeal to older women, as well as adding a dramatic tang. When Lange reads some of Elvis' short stories and declares that he's got a great literary talent you think "a ha - this is just like those three JD-rise-to-fame-films he made before going into the army simply with writing substituting for music" but the book aspect isn't really developed - he's merely a good enough writer to get a college scholarship.
So for a third act we have a plot where there's a scandal over Lange sleeping with Elvis - which didn't happen, but the two characters spend a rainy night in a motel together, kiss and declare their love (a hot scene - Elvis eventually leaves for not very convincing reasons), then they throw in Elvis accidentally killing someone in a fight (again - just like Jailhouse Rock) and it all becomes a bit of a mess.
Apparently the original cut of the film had Lange's suicide attempt at the film (another very effective scene - most of her moments are winners in this movie) succeed - but the changed version, where she lives but tells Elvis to go to college, is a lot more effective. Lange didn't do anything worthy of killing herself.
Actually the whole scandal-over-Lange-and-Elvis doesn't really work because the two obviously like each other and make a good couple. (If they remade the film today they'd just have the affair but then Lange would still let him go to college - just like The Heartbreak Kid). Lange is a lot more suited to Elvis than Weld (though you get the impression Weld would be great for a fling) or Perkins (in only her second role after The Diary of Ann Frank - and you can understand why Fox had trouble in finding roles for her, she's a sort of unengaging child-like figure, who doesn't seem too engaged with what's going on and has little chemistry with her male co-star).
The third act would have been better off doing more with Elvis' writing maybe, or Weld getting pregnant to him, just something else - as it is it kind of peters out the way it is. I think this, rather than the fact Elvis was playing a dramatic role, is what hurt the film at the box office.
Gary Lockwood plays the son-of-a-rich-man who keeps appearing at key dramatic moments to push the plot along (lazy writing this - he interrupts a liaison between Elvis and Perkins, then Elvis and Weld, then Elvis and Lange). Lange is very good and Elvis is pretty good - its wonderful to see him trying, to see him challenged, and handling himself.
