Chad Gates has just gotten out of the Army, and is happy to be back in
Hawaii with his surf-board, his beach buddies, and his girlfriend. His
father wants him to go to work at the Great Southern Hawaiian Fruit
Company, but Chad is reluctant. So Chad goes to work as a tour guide at
his girlfriend's agency
Blue Hawaii is a 1961 American musical romantic comedy film set in the state of Hawaii and starring Elvis Presley. The screenplay by Hal Kanter was nominated by the Writers Guild of America in 1962 in the category of Best Written American Musical.
Let me just say that you cannot fuck with young Elvis. Not the old, fat, drugged out Elvis. Young Elvis was cooler than the other side of the pillow. The ultimate Elvis Presley musical of the 1960's-and the biggest box office
success of his entire Hollywood career. 'Blue Hawaii' is the one that
certainly hit the highs with it's blend of comedy, romance, music, scenery
and a bevvy of beauties!
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| Elvis Presley rides the crest of the wave |
An Elvis movie wouldn't be an Elvis movie if he didn't chant his way through
a number of songs and with 'Blue Hawaii' this culminated in a total of
fourteen. Elvis will pull out a fucking guitar and belt out a song anywhere. This film, with its big budget and great soundtrack, laid the
groundwork for the Elvis movies made later. Unfortunately, as Parker
had negotiated a percentage of each film, it didn't take him long to
realize that the faster and cheaper they made them, the more money for
him and, by extension, Elvis. The soundtrack is quite possibly the best of any Elvis movie, with such
gems as "Can't Help Falling In Love," the toe-tapping "Rockahula,"
"Hawaiian Wedding Song" and an abbreviated but still enjoyable
rendition from Elvis of the traditional Hawaiian classic, "Aloha Oe."
Elvis was in top form here - handsome, slim, and boyish. A far cry from
the overweight, ostentatious, muttonchopped, rhinestoned, caped and
bell-bottomed joke he became a decade later. The rest of the cast was
good, with the exception of an over-the-top Angela Lansbury and a cold,
unmusical Joan Blackman.
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| Ecstatic romance...exotic dances...exciting music in the world's lushest paradise of song! |
The story is a sparse affair concerning Chad, a returned G.I. who wants
to make his own way in life but whose overbearing mother (Angela
Lansbury, great as usual) wants only to hear of him working in the
family's pineapple business. Chad figures out a way to get a job with a
tourist agency taking advantage of his knowledge of the islands, but a
crisis involving one of his underage charges threatens to cut his new
career short. "Blue Hawaii" was clearly intended as wholesome family entertainment,
but there are two points at which it might cause some raising of
eyebrows today. The first is the (presumably) unintentional double
entendre which occurs when Maile asks Chad whether he can satisfy a
teacher and four teenagers. The second comes when Chad picks Ellie up,
puts her across his knee and gives her a good spanking. You read that correctly. A 17 year girl is hell bent on singing into Elvis's mic.
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| Say my name bitch..... |
Blue Hawaii marks the height of Presley's singing and film career. The
Beatles hadn't come on the scene yet, the King was still ruling the
roost on the record charts and his films were grossing big box office. Definitely a must see for Elvis fans and a watchable one for non-Elvis
fans.
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| Elvis is, as usual, surrounded by pussy. |
Turn the sound up loud when Chad (Elvis Presley) is first seen leaving the plane and you will hear hundreds of screaming fans who were watching the shoot.
Angela Lansbury, who played Elvis Presley's mother, was only 35 years old when the movie was filmed, a mere ten years older than Elvis.
The closing scene, where Elvis Presley is getting married by the pool, was shot at the Coco Palms Resort on Kauai, where Elvis was staying when filming the movie.
Approximately seven minutes before "The End," Maile (Joan Blackman) kicks Chad (Elvis Presley) out of her room on Kauai, then peeks through the blinds. Briefly in her view is a couple paddling a canoe. The woman, blond and seated in front, is pop singer Patti Page. How Patti paddled her way into being an extra came about because she was then married to Charles O'Curran, a choreographer and music stager for many films produced by Hal B. Wallis, including this one.
The red MG roadster which opens the film was often seen in the first half. Presley liked the 1960 MGA 1600 MkI so much that he bought it. It now resides in Graceland at his car museum with his motorcycles, Cadillacs, Stutzs and other vehicles.
Juliet Prowse, Elvis Presley's co-star in G.I. Blues
(1960), was signed to play Maile, but she wanted to use another
studio's make-up artist and have the studio pay to fly her secretary to
Hawaii. When those conditions were refused, she pulled out of the film.
Elvis Presley gave his famous ukulele from this film to Hank Garland, nicknamed "Sugarfoot." Garland was one of the top session guitar player during the 1950s in Nashville. He recorded with Elvis and toured with him from 1958-1961. Elvis etched his initials into the ukulele for Garland. During his 1961 Hawaiian benefit concert (for the Arizona Memorial), Elvis was quoted as saying that Garland was "one of the finest guitar players in all of the country."
The soundtrack album for this movie is not only Elvis Presley's most successful chart album, but it is also the #1 album overall for 1961. "Blue Hawaii" spent 20 consecutive weeks at the #1 spot on Billboard Top LPs chart in 1961-1962 (a record to be broken only in 1977 by Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" album), and it stayed on the charts for 79 weeks.
Jenny Maxwell, who plays Ellie Corbett, was later the victim of a famous
never solved murder when in June of 1981 she and her husband, prominent
attorney Ervin "Tip" Roeder were gunned down at the entrance to their
Beverly Hills condo. Police were never able to develop a viable suspect
or motive for the double homicide. It was eventually written off as a
botched robbery but it is worth noting that at the time of the murder
Roeder was aggressively campaigning to reopen the investigation into the
death under mysterious circumstances of another prominent actor, Nick
Adams. Adams death was ruled an accidental drug overdose but many of his
friends, including Roeder, didn't accept this explanation believing
that Adams had probably been murdered.
Joan Blackman was in two movies with Elvis Presley
Film debut of Pamela Austin.
Angela Lansbury, who played Elvis Presley's mother, was only 35 years old when the movie was filmed, a mere ten years older than Elvis.
The closing scene, where Elvis Presley is getting married by the pool, was shot at the Coco Palms Resort on Kauai, where Elvis was staying when filming the movie.
Approximately seven minutes before "The End," Maile (Joan Blackman) kicks Chad (Elvis Presley) out of her room on Kauai, then peeks through the blinds. Briefly in her view is a couple paddling a canoe. The woman, blond and seated in front, is pop singer Patti Page. How Patti paddled her way into being an extra came about because she was then married to Charles O'Curran, a choreographer and music stager for many films produced by Hal B. Wallis, including this one.
The red MG roadster which opens the film was often seen in the first half. Presley liked the 1960 MGA 1600 MkI so much that he bought it. It now resides in Graceland at his car museum with his motorcycles, Cadillacs, Stutzs and other vehicles.
Elvis Presley gave his famous ukulele from this film to Hank Garland, nicknamed "Sugarfoot." Garland was one of the top session guitar player during the 1950s in Nashville. He recorded with Elvis and toured with him from 1958-1961. Elvis etched his initials into the ukulele for Garland. During his 1961 Hawaiian benefit concert (for the Arizona Memorial), Elvis was quoted as saying that Garland was "one of the finest guitar players in all of the country."
The soundtrack album for this movie is not only Elvis Presley's most successful chart album, but it is also the #1 album overall for 1961. "Blue Hawaii" spent 20 consecutive weeks at the #1 spot on Billboard Top LPs chart in 1961-1962 (a record to be broken only in 1977 by Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" album), and it stayed on the charts for 79 weeks.
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| Unsure why Elvis is singing to a group of dudes. |
Joan Blackman was in two movies with Elvis Presley
Film debut of Pamela Austin.
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| You can't stop love |
