A frustrating movie which I kept wanting to be better than it was. The story is perfect for Elvis, a variation on the sort of scripts Norman Krasna used to write - he's a millionaire's son who wants to find a girl who loves him for him so pretends to be poor and falls for a girl who wants to marry a rich man. Will Hutchins is fun as the guy who takes his place and suddenly starts acting like he's really rich, and Bill Bixby is good as the slimy villain - but Shelley Fabares, so good and likeable in Girl Happy is weak here. I don't know what it is - maybe the black wig that they put her in, but she's off form. Elvis doesn't seem too interested in his role. The script is at fault, too - they undevelop the attraction between Fabares and Elvis, so when he proposes at the end we don't get the impression that she really likes him (she should break it off with Bixby partly because she loves Elvis - but as it is she only does it because she decides not to be a gold digger). Also they could have used Hutchins more as a plot wild card - they don't do anything with him.
On the sunny side some of the tunes are catchy like the title one - there's a song which Elvis sings to kids called "Confidence" which sounds like a fairly brazen rip off of "High Hopes"; Gary Merrill adds solid support as a sort of father figure (whose belief in Elvis contrasts with Elvis' actual father - more could have been made of this). If Fabares and Elvis had been in better form (strong character, more lively performance, etc) this could have ranked with Girl Happy, but as it is, it's just below.
No comments:
Post a Comment