06.14.16
Pasadena Elvis Presley Film Festival: “Spinout” and “Speedway”
It’s the mid-60s. The Beatles, the Stones and Bob Dylan are happening, so how does Elvis Presley answer? He puts his heavy foot down, pedal to the metal on two racing car comedy musical romances, one sub-mediocre, the other godawful.
“Spinout’s” ridiculous story has Elvis as a bandleader and Grand Prix race car driver in the hills above Santa Barbara. A committed (maybe that should have been “confirmed”) bachelor, he’s chased by three women, one of them his drummer, played by Gidget.
All the characters are either simpering, swaggering or antagonizing. The only things that save the movie are the Three Stooges-like Grand Prix race (dig the cars spinning out and going the wrong direction and Elvis spinning out, and smoking over the same clump of straw more than once) and the music.
About the music: The uptempo tunes save it, special notice to the tromping, swingin’ shuffle, “I’ll Be Back.” There’s the title cut and two, “BeachShack” and “Smorgasbord” played at a pool party without a grain of sand in sight. “BeachShack” is a loose rip-off of Rolf Harris’ “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport.” “Never Say Yes” has a snappy drum break, offset by the tune’s terrible fuzz guitar’
“I saw that movie and it was dirty!” yells “Les” (Elvis’s female drummer) at a cookout. “Spinout” would have benefited from some good old-fashioned filth.
“Speedway,” from 1968, is bad from start to finish with moments of laughter only because parts are so senseless.
Nancy Sinatra is dumbfoundingly cast as an IRS auditor and Bill Bixby, fresh off “My Favorite Martian,” is Elvis’ (again as an entertainer and race car driver, this time — NASCAR) manager. There’s also an annoying tv variety show comedian, Carl Ballantine, who seemed to be hot stuff at the time, as Elvis’ mechanic.
One song furnishes most of the unintentional hilarity, “He’s Your Uncle, Not Your Dad,” about Uncle Sam, tax man.
Choice lyric:
“If he calls you, as he may do, don’t be mad, don’t be frightened,
red, white, and blue/Just be thankful you don’t live in Leningrad/Just remember, he’s your uncle, not your dad.”
As a tune, best fit would have been as one of those acetate-mounted-on-cardboard singles included every so often with a copy of MAD magazine. Astonishing Elvis didn’t walk off the set, it’s that humiliating.
“It’s a beautiful job of driving by both these drivers,” raves the “Speedway” announcer. Indeed! And viewers were screwed at the ticket window by this screw-up movie.
Both pics feature major product placement for Fender Musical Instruments, which had just experienced a big expansion when Leo Fender sold out to CBS.
Reprinted from Facebook while I was out. All movies reviewed in the Pasadena Elvis Presley Film Fest were either downloaded or streamed from pirate sites.