ELVIS-HARUM SCARUM!(1965):
This is a lot better movie than I thought it would
be! First off, there is actually a plot to it, as well
as a couple of decent songs(Harem Holiday, Hey
Little Girl[the dance number here is great!], So
Close and Yet So Far and My Desert Serenade)!
This also has the great Billy Barty(his second
movie with Elvis, the first being Roustabout!),
Michael Ansara, and Mary Ann Mobley, who
all put in fine performances!
Again, the dance number about half way through
the film by the orphan girl(Sari) was rather
interesting to watch!! B
From another reviewer at Amazon:
Say this for Harum Scarum: At least it has
the virtue of boasting one of the strangest
settings of any Elvis Presley vehicle. Elvis
plays an action-movie star on a goodwill
tour of the Middle East who's kidnapped
in a remote country that has turned its
back on modernity. Vilified as an "American
unbeliever," he is enlisted by the Lord of
the Assassins in a plot to kill a monarch
(they've mistaken his filmic kung fu fighting
skills for the real thing). And this is an
Elvis picture? The soundtrack has a
particularly mad selection of faux-"Kismet"
numbers relating to the setting, with
lyrics such as "I'm gonna go where the
desert sun is/I'm gonna go where I know
the fun is." Hints that the whole thing
is a Rudolph Valentino spoof help the
early going, but it gets pretty draggy.
Elvis looks liveliest in a Vegas sequence...
a bit of foreshadowing. --Robert Horton