It Happened at the World's Fair

 

It Happened at the World's Fair

 

Kurt Russell had an uncredited speaking role as a boy who Mike Edwards pays 25¢ to kick him, thus giving him a chance to visit Nurse Warren. Russell would go on to play Elvis in the made-for-television film Elvis, provide the voice for Elvis in Forrest Gump, and portray an Elvis impersonator in 3000 Miles to Graceland.

Vicky Tiu,  later grew up to be the first lady of Hawaii when she married Governor Benjamin J. Cayetano.

 

 The Seattle Center, including the Seattle Center Monorail and the Space Needle, serve as backdrops for several scenes in the film. Security officers pursue Presley and the girl through the fountains at what is now the Pacific Science Center. The hitchhiking scene with Elvis and Gary Lockwood was filmed near Camarillo, California. as were some of the flying scenes. The entire hitchhiking scene to the point where they are both picked up by Kam Tong and Vicky Tiu Cayetano in the truck is easily recognizable as 5th Street near Pleasant Valley Road on the South side of Camarillo.

                                                           

Fun in Acapulco

 

Fun in Acapulco

 

While some exterior scenes were shot in Acapulco, Mexico, Elvis's scenes were shot in Hollywood. He never went to Acapulco. The movie featured the Top 10 Billboard hit "Bossa Nova Baby". The film reached #1 on the national weekly box office charts. The film was released five days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The film, and its accompanying soundtrack album, would be Presley's last release before the arrival of Beatlemania. Fun in Acapulco was the top grossing movie musical of 1963.
                                           

Kid Galahad

 

Kid Galahad

 

 Kid Galahad is a 1962 musical film starring Elvis Presley as a boxer. It was released by United Artists. The

film opened at #9 at the box office when released in the United States in August 1962. Variety ranked it #37 on the list of the top-grossing films of 1962.

Kid Galahad was shot on location in Idyllwild, California. Its supporting cast included Gig Young, Lola Albright and Charles Bronson. Some critics rate it as one of Elvis Presley's best performances.

The film is a remake of the 1937 original version starring Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart and directed by Michael Curtiz, who also directed the Presley 1958 film King Creole.

   For this role Presley was tutored in the arts of pugilism by former world junior welterweight champ Mushy Callahan, who appeared in the film. Reigning welterweight champion Orlando De La Fuente also appeared as Ramon "Sugar Boy" Romero. Shooting began in early November of 1961 in Hidden Lodge, Idyllwild, California, before a storm forced a move to Hollywood. 
                                    

Girls! Girls! Girls!

 

Girls! Girls! Girls!

 

Nominated for Best Motion Picture - Musical at the 1963 ceremony. The winner that year was The Music Man. Elvis Presley received a 2nd place Laurel Award for the best male performance in a musical for his acting role in this movie.
( The Laurel Awards were cinema awards to honor pictures, actors, actresses, directors and composers. This award was created by Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine, and ran from 1958 to 1968, then 1970 and 1971.

The Golden Laurels were determined by American and Canadian film buyers. After the vote, the results were published in the magazine, without ceremony.)

                                                                

Follow That Dream

 

Follow That Dream

 

The title Follow That Dream was chosen, allegedly, because the songwriters could not find a rhyme for "pioneer". At first, Powell was unhappy that Presley had been chosen for the role, but after seeing the finished film he thought Presley had done a good job.

It was filmed in Citrus, Marion, and Levy Counties, Florida, specifically Inverness, Ocala, Inglis and Yankeetown. The courtroom scene took place in the 1912 Citrus County Old Courthouse in Invernes which has been restored and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Part of the courtroom restoration can be directly attributed to the film in that it was the only record of the original courtroom configuration. Yankeetown memorializes his stay in the form of their major highway, Follow That Dream Parkway. The parkway was named due to the efforts of four Elvis fans. After months of meetings, the parkway had a grand opening under its new name, Follow That Dream Parkway, on July 27, 1996. The dedication and celebration was held in Inglis Florida. The bank scene was filmed in Ocala, Florida at a bank on Siver Springs Boulevard.

                                                        

Soundtrack

Follow That Dream
EP by Elvis Presley
Released	April 1962
Recorded	July 2, 1961
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	8:36
Label	RCA Records
Producer	Hans Salter

Recording sessions took place on July 5, 1961, at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. Six songs were recorded for the film, and a distressed Presley insisted that the worst song, "Sound Advice," be omitted from release when it came time to assemble a soundtrack. "Sound Advice" would be placed on the compilation Elvis for Everyone, and a sixth soundtrack song, "A Whistling Tune," would be saved for the next film Kid Galahad, the version recorded at these sessions later released on Collectors Gold in 1991. Presley sang a few lines of "On Top of Old Smokey" in the film, but the recording was made on the movie set. The issue of quality would continue to be a sore point in his soundtrack material for the remainder of his film career.

Issued as an extended play record, the Follow That Dream soundtrack EP was released in April 1962 to coincide with the film's premiere. The record sold very well, especially for an EP in the Sixties. The title song received Top 40 radio air-play and reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Wild in the Country

 

" Wild in the Country "

 

Wild in the Country was filmed on location in Napa Valley and in Hollywood Studios, although it is set in the Shenandoah Valley. The cast and crew created a public sensation in Napa for over two months of filming. The motel where many of the cast stayed, Casa Beliveau (since torn down), was so mobbed that Elvis had to be moved to the St. Helena home that was being used in the film as Irene Sperry's house where Glenn Tyler went for counseling. Now a top-rated inn in Napa Valley and known as The Ink House, you can still stay in the room where Elvis slept for over two months.

 Other Napa Valley locations featured in the movie. The opening scene was filmed along portions of the Napa River. This section of the river is located at what is now the Casa Nuestra Winery, between Calistoga and St. Helena. Calistoga's downtown main street was used as the hometown of Glenn Tyler's uncle and his cousin. Other filming locations in Napa Valley include the Silverado Trail between Calistoga and St. Helena, the Cameo Cinema (then The Roxy), an old movie theater still in operation in downtown St. Helena where the dance hall scenes with Elvis and Tuesday Weld were filmed, and the hills and farmland behind what is now Whitehall Lane Winery just north of the town of Rutherford.

 The Ink House was used as the house and backyard where a drunken Glenn Tyler tries to hose down Irene Sperry through the porch window, and the nearby 1885 barn is where Irene Sperry drives her DeSoto in to attempt suicide when she is so distraught over her suspected romance with Glenn and the scandal it has caused. In one scene, Betty Lee slaps Glenn. Millie Perkins suffered a broken arm while doing the scene, and before the film was released, the scene ended up being cut out of the movie.

This was Elvis' last dramatic lead role until Charro! as his next film, Blue Hawaii, was his first big budget musical and was a box office sensation. All his subsequent movies were largely formula musicals which were quite lucrative but never gave him the chance to develop his potential as a serious actor that was very apparent in Wild in the Country.

 In the original script and rough cut of the film, Hope Lange's character Irene Sperry succeeds in her suicide attempt. However, preview audiences reacted negatively to it and the scene was redone in which Irene survives and sees Glenn off to college.

 Presley began an off-screen romance with Hollywood "bad girl" Tuesday Weld but the relationship was short-lived after Colonel Tom Parker warned Presley against his involvement, fearful it would harm his image. Elvis and Hope Lange also were quite taken with each other, but her separation from her husband did not result in a divorce until the next summer making her unavailable for a serious relationship.

Other notable members in the cast included Jason Robards, Sr., Christina Crawford (daughter of Joan Crawford), Pat Buttram and the legendary Rudd Weatherwax who trained the animals used in the movie.

                                                              

Blue Hawaii

 

Blue Hawaii was the first of three Elvis films to be shot in Hawaii, followed by Girls! Girls! Girls! in 1962 and Paradise, Hawaiian Style in 1965. Producer Hal B. Wallis was keen to put Presley into a film that showed how the army affected a man. Actress Juliet Prowse, who had starred with Presley in GI Blues, was approached to be his love interest again. However, after her demands were put forward, Paramount decided to drop her as a possible candidate for the role, choosing Joan Blackman instead. Presley was apparently so pale before shooting that Wallis personally recommended a brand of tanning lamp to darken his skin. The film was announced in the fall of 1960 as Hawaii Beach Boy. At the time, film producer Walter Mirisch had a similar titled film in production, "Hawaii", and he was upset that Wallis had chosen such a similar name.

Presley arrived in Hawaii on March 18, 1961, to prepare for a charity concert that he was performing on March 25 to raise funds for the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbour. He arrived at the recording studio on March 21 to start the recording of the film's soundtrack.Three weeks later location filming had finished, including scenes at Waikiki Beach, Diamond Head, Mount Tantalus, and Hanauma Bay, a volcanic crater that is open to the sea, near the bedroom community of Hawaii-Kai, a few miles away from Waikiki. Following location filming, the crew returned to the Paramount lot to finish other scenes for the film. Presley would relax during filming by giving karate demonstrations with his friend and employee, Red West, which resulted in Presley's fingers becoming bruised and swollen. Wallis warned the female stars of the film to avoid parties hosted by Presley because they were turning up for shooting looking tired.

It could be argued that this film set the tone for Presley's future film career — pretty locations, gorgeous girls, dull plots, and mediocre songs. Almost all of these musical-comedy films performed well, whereas more "serious" films, such as Flaming Star, Wild in the Country and Charro!, did poorly at the box office. Blue Hawaii, on the other hand, was one of Elvis' most successful films, opening at #2 at the box office when released on November 22, 1961.

Producer Hal Wallis would use the box office returns from Blue Hawaii to finance an upcoming Wallis film, 1964's Becket, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole.

Presley was 26 at the time this film was released, and a not yet 36-year-old Angela Lansbury played his character's mother. Lansbury would later comment that her appearance here was one of the worst in her career.

Much of the film was shot on location at the Coco Palms Resort on the east coast of Kauai. The resort has been abandoned since Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

Although it is mentioned in the film that Chad's parents live in Kahala, one of the most expensive and exclusive areas of Honolulu in 1961, the view from their "lanai" (porch or terrace) shows Diamond Head as it appears from Waikiki and downtown Honolulu. In actuality, Kahala is located on the other side of Diamond Head from Waikiki.

There were several scenes filmed in and around the famous Waikiki Beach, including the opening driving scenes, as well as the office scene across the street from the "International Market." The scenes where Chad's clients stayed in a hotel and where he picked up his tour group - as well as the beach he spent time with his girlfriend - were all filmed on the property that is now known as the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Waikiki Beach.