FUN IN ACAPULCO (1963) **1/2 Elvis Presley had about as much charisma as anyone who ever lived. He had a better voice than damn near anyone. No man, except maybe James Brown or Mick Jagger, was possessed of such a natural physical grace. The only question, really, is how much he understood. The music here isn't nearly as bad as some of his schlock films, in fact it's pretty good. Decent cantina music with a great singer (doing one song sets all over town). But this is the man who probably did more than anyone else to release the social spirit of the second half of the 20th century. He was not a dumb man. He could not have possibly listened to this sound track and then.for example.what Bob Dylan was doing at the same time, and felt terribly delighted with himself as an artist. So what happened? I don't know, probably a combination of two things: (1) Elvis trusted Colonel Parker a little too much, artistically and financially, or was one of those guys like Bill Clinton desperate to please everyone around them, and again greedy folk were too close, and (2) like most folk from the rural South, and particularly patriotic military veterans, Elvis was particularly suspicious of the seismic social changes that he had to a great extent inspired. The irony is that he died an early and lonely death because he bought into only the worst of it, instead of the musical side where he could have maybe made even more things happen. By the time he came back he'd missed the wave, though the gospel-oriented stuff is tremendous. So there's a lot of good things about Elvis in this film, but none of the best. Ursula Andress as the girl he really cares about, but he just can't help being Elvis. His chemistry with young Larry Domasin is, obviously, different, but more moving and sincere. Looking at Colonel Parker keep rolling by on the credits, you can't help wishing that Domasin really had been Elvis' manager. Man, can you imagine being an eight year old kid and starring with Elvis! Elvis was a presence capable to elevating even this trite, schlocky story to a level of enjoyable entertainment. You know, and I'm thinking, Ursula was a presence capable of raising any swimming pool story to enjoyable entertainment for half the audience, and Elvis did the same for the other half.maybe the producers had a better idea of what they were doing than we give 'em credit for. I just wonder if Elvis did. And how he felt about it. And how much that had to do with his increasing and intense need to deaden his feelings. It's not the movie's fault, it's a fun movie. Fuhgettaboutit.
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