This is another enjoyable Elvis vehicle: it’s early yet, but I’m having a better time with these films than I had anticipated! Once again, the songs prove to be quite inconsequential – the only two I liked here were “One Broken Heart For Sale” and the would-be macabre children’s ditty “Cotton Candy Land” – and the leading lady is the rather unsympathetic and over-coiffeured Joan O’Brien. But, thankfully, Gary Lockwood is on hand to offer solid support as Elvis’ sidekick who has a gambling addiction; it’s ironic that the film ends with Elvis signing up for a NASA space program when Lockwood himself would go on to obtain screen immortality with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)!
The subplot involving the abandoned Asian child often threatens to descend into bathos but she wins over the audience with her cute and amusing antics to get sick in order to bring Elvis and nurse O’Brien together again after a quarrel. Also notable is the scene featuring a very young Kurt Russell (who would eventually portray Presley in a 1979 TV biopic directed by, of all people, John Carpenter!) which involves yet another scam by which Elvis is able to ensnare O’Brien into falling for him.
Unfortunately, at a running time of 105 minutes, the film does slightly outstay its welcome and some of the other subplots – those involving the child welfare board’s attempts to take the kid out of the jobless Elvis’ custody (leading to a chase inside the grounds of the Seattle Fair) and Lockwood falling in with crooks (climaxing in an admittedly energetic fistfight in a hangar) – could have been jettisoned without sacrificing the film’s entertainment value.
The subplot involving the abandoned Asian child often threatens to descend into bathos but she wins over the audience with her cute and amusing antics to get sick in order to bring Elvis and nurse O’Brien together again after a quarrel. Also notable is the scene featuring a very young Kurt Russell (who would eventually portray Presley in a 1979 TV biopic directed by, of all people, John Carpenter!) which involves yet another scam by which Elvis is able to ensnare O’Brien into falling for him.
Unfortunately, at a running time of 105 minutes, the film does slightly outstay its welcome and some of the other subplots – those involving the child welfare board’s attempts to take the kid out of the jobless Elvis’ custody (leading to a chase inside the grounds of the Seattle Fair) and Lockwood falling in with crooks (climaxing in an admittedly energetic fistfight in a hangar) – could have been jettisoned without sacrificing the film’s entertainment value.