ELVIS: LOVE ME TENDER!(1956):
A pretty good movie, albeit Elvis isn't the best actor
here! This really stars Richard Egan and James Drury
and they are quite good as they are both use to being
in a western! Elvis does try, but he's about the fourth
fiddle in this. Even William Campbell (Trellane in Star
Trek's "The Squire Of Gothos") has a bigger role than Elvis!
All-in-all a decent enough movie, but I'm just not a big
western fan! C+
From another reviewer at Amazon:
Here's the alpha point of Elvis Presley's film career,
the introduction of the raw-boned Mississippi boy
into Hollywood pictures. E.P. takes a supporting role,
and his entrance is delayed for nearly 20 minutes:
kid brother to returning Civil War soldier Richard
Egan, his character marries Egan's sweetheart Debra
Paget when Egan is presumed dead. It's a chance
for Elvis, his face still trembling with baby fat, to
emote dramatically and finish tragically, both of
which he does passably well. A serviceable Western,
the film shamelessly shoehorns four Presley tunes
into two sequences: E.P. crooning on mama's porch,
and performing at a country fair (where starchy
locals don't seem disturbed at the boy's gyrating
hips and happy feet). All in all, a shrewd way to
put a foot in Hollywood's doorway, and, of course,
one of the last Presley movies to feel like a real
film and not a vehicle for the King. --Robert Horton