"G.I. Blues" (1960 release; 105 min.) brings the story of Tulsa and his Army buddies. As the movie opens, Tulsa is stationed in Frankfurt, West Germany, dreaming of his post-Army days to hopefully become a successful singer and to that effect, Tulsa and his buddies perform at various local bars and venues. In the meantime, there are more immediate things to worry about, such as... girls! One evening, Tulsa catches a bar dancer named Lili by chance, and he is quite smitten with her. Tulsa and his buddies make a wager that he can spend the night one-on-one with Lili... At this point we are less than 15 min. into the movie.
Couple of comments: this is the "Army movie" that was being planned for Elvis while he was actually still stationed in West Germany in real life. The Army lent its support to the project, and some scenes were filmed on location (although most of the film was shot upon Elvis' release from the Army). Elvis plays Tulsa, who is basically just being Elvis. The movie's plot is wafer-thin, basically a string of excuses to let Elvis sing and perform while he is pursuing his love interest. Keep an eye out for the production set, as truly this movie is a time capsule of a different era--check out the "Köln-Düsseldorfer" river cruise (still operating now 60 years later) and the impossibly small Frankfurt airport, not to mention those wonderful late 50s car models. Then there is the (in)famous babysitting scene late in the film, both funny and cringe-worthy all at the same time. All in all, this is quite innocent fun, and also very chastite. No "Elvis the Pelvis" here, as he pretty much restrains moving his body while performing. It's hard to believe that this movie is now 60 years old, but you could do a lot worse as an introduction to Elvis' movie career.
I had never seen this film until a few days ago when I was channel surfing and stumbled on this on HDNet, a TV channel I had never heard about. On pure intuition, I tuned in and found myself sorta mesmerized how good this film turned out to be. HDNet showed this as part of an Elvis movie marathon in August (I recently also saw "Blue Hawaii"). I plan on checking out a few more Elvis films in the days to come. Meanwhile, if you, like myself, have ever been curious about actually seeing an entire Elvis movie, I'd readily suggest you check out "G.I. Blues", and draw your own conclusion.
Couple of comments: this is the "Army movie" that was being planned for Elvis while he was actually still stationed in West Germany in real life. The Army lent its support to the project, and some scenes were filmed on location (although most of the film was shot upon Elvis' release from the Army). Elvis plays Tulsa, who is basically just being Elvis. The movie's plot is wafer-thin, basically a string of excuses to let Elvis sing and perform while he is pursuing his love interest. Keep an eye out for the production set, as truly this movie is a time capsule of a different era--check out the "Köln-Düsseldorfer" river cruise (still operating now 60 years later) and the impossibly small Frankfurt airport, not to mention those wonderful late 50s car models. Then there is the (in)famous babysitting scene late in the film, both funny and cringe-worthy all at the same time. All in all, this is quite innocent fun, and also very chastite. No "Elvis the Pelvis" here, as he pretty much restrains moving his body while performing. It's hard to believe that this movie is now 60 years old, but you could do a lot worse as an introduction to Elvis' movie career.
I had never seen this film until a few days ago when I was channel surfing and stumbled on this on HDNet, a TV channel I had never heard about. On pure intuition, I tuned in and found myself sorta mesmerized how good this film turned out to be. HDNet showed this as part of an Elvis movie marathon in August (I recently also saw "Blue Hawaii"). I plan on checking out a few more Elvis films in the days to come. Meanwhile, if you, like myself, have ever been curious about actually seeing an entire Elvis movie, I'd readily suggest you check out "G.I. Blues", and draw your own conclusion.