ELVIS: KING CREOLE!(1958):
Again with the "Elvis trying to be someone he's not"
movie! I just don't care for his trying to be the next
James Dean! The movie has it's plusses, like a few
really great actors(Walter Matthew[Charade, The
Odd Couple] Carolyn Jones[TVs The Addams Family]
and Dean Jagger[TVs Mr Novak, White Christmas!]),
and the ambience of the movie in old New Orleans,
but they don't make up for the darkness of this that
really isn't fun at all! C+
From another reviewer at Amazon:
Before his handlers convinced him to settle for the
safety of a screen franchise, the young Elvis Presley
harbored riskier dreams as an actor, not just a star.
This 1958 drama, his fourth feature outing, hints at
the underlying seriousness of that goal. Presley plays
Danny Fisher, a New Orleans teenager struggling to
graduate from high school while working in a sleazy
French Quarter club to support his family. He's also
characterized as a troubled youth with a dangerous
temper and feelings of shame and resentment toward
his meek, unemployed father (Dean Jagger). When
Danny's gift for singing provides him with a potential
career break (and the requisite excuse for Elvis's
production numbers), his involvement with a
ruthless gangster (Walter Matthau) and his sultry,
alcoholic moll (Carolyn Jones) soon threatens
both his future and his family.
That story line, with Danny torn between a
budding romance with a good waitress (Dolores
Hart) and the bad moll, Ronnie (Jones), proves
as effective as it is predictable, hardly surprising
given its source in an early Harold Robbins bestseller.
But King Creole also boasts an impressive production
pedigree (including the team behind no less a classic
than Casablanca, producer Hal Wallis and director
Michael Curtiz), and the supporting cast helps
elicit one of Presley's most emotional performances.
Jones in particular rises above her role's inherent
clichés, her self-loathing and sexuality both palpable.
Presley, still a few years away from the more
sanitized image that would be integral to those
franchise features, is young enough to be a
credible teen, but more crucially he makes
his rage and yearning largely convincing.
Ironically, the dramatic sparks prove all the
more welcome in light of the largely forgettable
music, which variously plunders Chicago blues
("Trouble," a knock-off of "Hoochie Coochie Man")
and unconvincingly crosses Presley's Memphis
rock with Crescent City jazz ("Dixieland Rock"),
all to far less effect than Presley's two preceding
movies, Jailhouse Rock and Loving
You. --Sam Sutherland