This could have been okay but it’s been done in by shoddy execution. Elvis plays a singer working in London who romances a beautiful girl (Annette Day) who won’t put out – turns out the reason is she’s only 17. But she remains the love interest and inspires the plot – a bunch of people are after her money, resulting in shenanigans involving her dodgy uncle (John Williams), a wacky policeman (Leon Askin), some bumbling crooks (Norman Rossington, our own Chips Rafferty), a sexy dame (Yvonne Romain), a seemingly nice killer (who almost murders the female lead in a surprisingly full on sequence).
There’s a lot of running around Europe – but shockingly this was all done on the film set. Didn’t the producers realise that one of the big appeals of crappy Elvis movies was the location footage? Some nice actual shots of Antwerp, London, etc might have made this fun – as well as galvanising the star, who looks really bored.
It’s a real shame – Elvis has had worse plots, and there’s plenty of running around and con men and cops and spies (even if its slightly yuck he’s got this 17 year old lead, who does turn 18 at the end, enabling him to marry her… but then this is the guy who got under-age Priscilla to move in), it’s one of his best support casts, it’s great to see him in a European setting, the sheer idea of Chips Rafferty in an Elvis movie is hilarious, there’s an interesting title sequence consisting mostly of stills of dancing girls.
But the handling is indifferent, the lack of location shooting in 1967 really annoying, Day is uninspired and wears nowhere near enough groovy clothes, the songs poor (Elvis even sings ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ while on the back of a truck in Europe – I don’t mind that song for one of his farm based US films but why use it when set overseas?). A pity.
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