Channeling Elvis

Elvis is back in the buiding -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
THE WEATHER IS HERE...

Today, DFW is recovering from one of the worst snowstorms we’ve endured in 20 years. It’s ironic, because this was Super Bowl week, when the DFW Metroplex was rolling out the red carpet to basically the entire football-watching world. What the world got was a city frozen to a crawl, and a newly expanded DART rail knocked out of commission. Adding injury to insult were large chunks of ice that slid off the Cowboy Stadium and onto the heads of nearby workers and photographers (6 people injured in all). People be aware this was all freakish in the extreme -- we normally wouldn’t be having Jerry’s Ice Follies. Dallas’ January high is usually @ 57 and normal low is 32. We were topping out at 22 during the worst of our inclement situation. It’s now Super Bowl Sunday and we’ve recovered to a drizzly 48. Not being a football fan, I can’t comment (credibly) on the game in progress. So, on to our blog topic du jour…

ELVIS

This morning I watched 1962’s Kid Galahad with Elvis Presley, Charles Bronson and Gig Young. The movie kept very nobly to the Elvis movie formula. Humble roustabout hires into a reasonable work setting which gives way to perilous complications (Pick: pirates, gangsters, Hells Angels, etc) and one or two pretty girls vying for affection. Throw in some blandly cute songs and you’ve got yourself the Elvis concoction. This morning I was feeling slightly morose -- needed something light and frivolous. Think of it as visual junk food, delivered in HD quality by Netflix.

Several things amaze me as I watch this movie, things that make me want to go back to 1962. Kid Galahad features boxing; the young men featured (including Elvis) all have nice builds but they don’t have six-pack abs, chiseled pecs or 30” waists. Nowadays you wouldn’t be admitted on the set without looking at least as good as Jersey Shore’s Situation. We didn’t used to have a requirement that you live at the gym.

Gig Young and the other older gents wear slacks and cardigan sweaters even in casual situations. Actually so does Elvis for the picnic scene -- he wears slacks and a fitted sport shirt. We’ve gone a different way from that now, where torn jeans, flip-flops and graphic tees can almost be suitable fare in a cushy restaurant. The lazy blog author must also confess to such sartorial laziness BUT -- I respect and admire the days of yore when we used to give a darn. Gig Young looked better drinking and playing pool than I would look going to church.

I also miss the innocent attitude of the movie, a simplicity of life that never existed even then. Kid Galahad was dated even three years after it came out -- a piece of matinee fluff with no discernible challenge to the intellect. No matter to me -- the movie was a visual excursion and a welcome bit of Hollywood hokum with all the loose ends tied. Handsome guy gets pretty girl. Villains are vanquished. Even the “old people” (Gig Young and Lola Albright) hook up -- in marriage of course, this being 1962. End scene, plan for next Elvis flick. In this movie I got to see the lovely Joan Blackman decked out in Kennedy-era fashions and saw a smattering of early 60’s cars (e.g., a ‘60 Pontiac) in brand new condition. It could be without a soundtrack and I’d like the imagery that rolls across the screen.

Alas, nothing is that great -- then or now. Fluff movies were the reflection of a fluff society that chose (until the mid 60's) to ignore, never explore its dark or wild side. Elvis OD’d at 42 and Gig Young offed himself (in a lurid murder suicide) in 1978. The loose ends certainly came untied at the end -- reality didn‘t track very closely to a Hollywood script.

I have to suppose that Kid Galahad has about the significance of a Hallmark greeting card in both its prettiness and its two-dimensionality. But thank you nonetheless, Hollywood. Maybe in some weird sense, “how things look” is a decent indicator of “how things are“ in the given instance. In 1962, Elvis was still King, Gig Young was an Oscar caliber actor and the world was at least in part, a colorful rock-and-roll twist party that can still put a smile on our faces in 2011. I’ll accept and enjoy the Hallmark greeting even if it arrives slightly tattered and torn.


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