Catalog From The Beyond: John Carpenter’s ELVIS (1979)

All right, gang, I’m going to need for you to bear with me as I take an abrupt left turn for this month’s column. I’ve been wanting to do a John Carpenter movie for a while now, but the problem is that he doesn’t have many “B-sides” that people haven’t talked about ad nauseum. Our very own Patrick Bromley recently covered one of his more relatively obscure entries with Prince of Darkness, and Scott Drebit gave his take on that one with the William Shatner mask. So, to find new territory, I had to go back to 1979, a year after Carpenter released his breakthrough masterpiece, but just before he churned out a series of classics in the early ’80s that would cement his legacy as one of the greatest horror directors of all time. It’s at this tipping point that Carpenter directed a made-for-TV biopic about the King of Rock & Roll himself, Elvis Presley. And before you ask, no, Carpenter wasn’t going for some macabre twist on Presley’s life story that ends with the discovery of a pile of corpses in the basement at Graceland. Elvis: The Movie is very much a straightforward take on the King’s life.

I’m sure you have questions. First and foremost, why the hell would I cover this movie on a horror-themed website? I’ll admit that I was interested in the idea of Carpenter doing a non-genre flick. Sure, he’s done movies that aren’t strictly horror, but nothing like this. In an interview for the film, Carpenter admitted, “I really love Elvis a lot, I’ve always been a fan of his,” and that this was a “personal” film for him. So I wanted to know if he could pull it off.

I was also intrigued by the lost relic of “event television.” When ABC debuted Elvis on February 11th, 1979, it scored a 27.3 Nielsen rating. To put that into perspective, the highest-rated regularly scheduled television show of 2016 was NCIS (blech), which peaked at a 12.8 rating. Aside from the Super Bowl, not a single program on television last year reached the peak hit by Elvis and movies of its ilk during that era, and I’ve wondered what it was like for original scripted programming to capture the attention of the nation in such a way.

Very early in the movie, I noted that the script seems to have been written with the knowledge that this would be event viewing, shown for a wide variety of people whose only connection would be some level of interest in the King. Not to say that the script, written by Anthony Lawrence, isn’t entertaining. But there didn’t seem to be an attempt to dig too much into Presley’s life to find some compelling narrative hook. Framed by Presley’s 1969 comeback concert at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, the movie plays out almost like a moving slide show of the main benchmarks of his life. We get his childhood in Tulepo, Mississippi, his rise to stardom, (including the famous Ed Sullivan Show performance, of course) and his marriage to Priscilla Presley. What we don’t get, however, are the final years with the drug abuse and health issues. Thankfully, we do get the infamous gunshot to the television because otherwise, why are we even here?

What’s interesting, however, is that while Presley’s final years aren’t depicted in this movie, with the singer having passed away less than two years ago at the time of its premiere, it would be hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t have these aspects of his life in mind when watching the movie. And I think that Carpenter’s direction hints that he recognized this fact. The movie presents Presley as a tragic outsider who talks to the ghost of his twin brother, who was stillborn shortly after Elvis’ birth. This element comes back several times, including an interesting scene where Presley talks to his shadow as if it were his brother. Carpenter also finds subtle ways to hint at at an odd relationship between Presley and his mother, Gladys (Shelley Winters). His praise of his mother borders on inappropriate, and during certain scenes Carpenter frames the performers just a little too close in the shot without ever hitting the audience over the head with a sign that reads “Oedipal complex.” The loss of his mother only pushes him deeper into his music, as he continues to isolate himself from relationships with friends and family through the course of the movie.

The finale, which wraps the story back to the International Hotel concert, plays out not as a triumphant comeback, but rather some Shakespearean tragedy where our protagonist makes a decision that we know will eventually lead to his demise. As we approach this impending doom, we do get the smallest hints of Carpenter’s ability to induce dread, and because this is Carpenter we’re talking about, it’s only natural he’d do so with musical cues. One such scene that foreshadows Gladys’ impending health troubles begins with a rendition of “Silent Night” that slowly transitions into ominous, harrowing tones that make you wonder if we really are going to get another blast of holiday-themed horror from the man who made it famous.

Perhaps the most recognizable Carpenter elements in Elvis are the casting choices, including Carpenter mainstay Charles “Sheriff Brackett” Cyphers. Here he plays Sam Phillips, the head of Sun Records who would first discover Presley and get him airtime on the radio. He doesn’t get too much screen time, but as always, he knows what to do with what he’s given.

And, of course it would be a sin if I didn’t mention the birth of perhaps the most glorious of all director/actor relationships, which started with this film when Carpenter chose for his lead the man responsible for some of my favorite characters ever put to film, Kurt Russell. Of course, Russell nails the role, portraying Elvis’ mannerisms without drifting into broad impression. He leans into the “aw, shucks” sensitive Southern creative kid schtick with gusto. But then, this movie could have been two and a half hours of Kurt Russell in a fat suit waving his arms around lethargically and it would still be worthwhile if it meant we would one day get to have R.J. MacReady and Jack Burton in our lives.

Had the movie actually been two and a half hours of arm flailing, at least it would have been about 20 minutes shorter than what we got. As much as I appreciated the “event” feel of the movie, I can’t see how it warranted a three-hour running time. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have been nearly that long had they cut or shortened some of the musical numbers. I get that this is an Elvis movie, and that if we’re going to cover the “greatest hits” of his life, we have to play some of his actual greatest hits. That said, I felt like for all the music in the movie, they repeated a couple of songs while inexplicably leaving some out, which I can only imagine had to have been due to issues with the rights. With a catalog as extensive as Presley’s, it’s inevitable that some songs couldn’t make the cut, but are you really going to make a movie about Elvis and not play “Jailhouse Rock” or “Hound Dog”?

Pacing issues aside, overall I found Elvis to be a worthwhile entry into the Carpenter pantheon. I have no idea how much of it was true to Presley’s life (although it’s said that Priscilla Presley was asked to review it for accuracy), but it still made for an interesting piece of television history. What’s more, it proves that Carpenter can indeed pull off a standard drama. So, if you’re ever looking to take a break from horror (scoff) but need to have some kind of safety line to the genre, you can’t go wrong with Elvis. Maybe just plan for an intermission.