By the late 50s MGM were very much in decline but one gets the feeling they were still cocky enough to tackle Elvis with the attitude of "right, he's made two films for other studios - but this is MGM and we'll do it properly". And they did, too - its Elvis' best film yet and certainly his best performance.
He's very confident in front of the camera and he's terrific - sexy, charismatic, etc, etc. This is one of his least sympathetic roles ever - even if the filmmakers do stack the deck in his favour, he's still quite snarling and JD-y (more so even than King Creole).
This gets off to a great start, with Elvis killing a man in a fight (the guy was obnoxious and deserved it), and going to a prison run by a corrupt warden, where his cell mate bosses him around and bullies him into signing a management contract (which you see and go "how did that one get past the Colonel?"). Then he gets out of gaol, hooks up with pretty record plugger Judy Tyler and tries to break into show biz, but has little luck - indeed, he gets ripped off by one artist causing him to punch out an exec (but the guy was obnoxious and deserved it) - until forming his own record company with Tyler and making it big.
Then he grows a big head and becomes increasingly obnoxious, and the sympathies of the film shift away from Elvis - he's mean to poor manager Judy Tyler, then when his cell mate comes back said cell mate doesn't try to enforce his dodgy contract and rip him off (yeah, right) but goes to work for him and Elvis treats him mean. Aw, poor management (this is how it got past the Colonel - just like in Loving You, even when Elvis signs a contract his managers aren't out to rip him off, they're his family, and he needs them to stay on the straight and narrow).
So the film gets progressively less interesting as it goes on - why should we care about the cell mate? He exploited Elvis in prison. Fortunately, though, the terrific title number is in the second half, giving it a fillip til the end.
Judy Tyler is OK as the female lead - in his review of the film David Shipman wrote that her subsequent career wasn't much, perhaps unaware that she actually died in a car crash soon after filming ended. Interestingly, Elvis' movies number two to four all dealt with the same story - Elvis rising to fame - with Elvis playing a juvenile delinquent.
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