Pink&Black wrote:Saturday I bought the FTD Change of Habit book. It's beautiful! Spent the weekend drooling over the pictures
I had last watched the movie many moons ago, but the book really made me want to watch the movie. So on Sunday (it was autumn in Holland) I watched it and I really enjoyed it. Elvis looks so cool and relaxed. In some of his movies from the mid sixties he moves as if he's lost all sense of rhythm and you can actually see he's embarrassed. But in Change of Habit he seems to be at ease, probably because he knew he was out of the movie contracts. Anyway I hugely enjoyed this movie and even though it might be a bit naive, it does address topical issues. Another thing that struck my mind was that in many Elvis movies the songs often seem out of place or far fetched, like Elvis said: "I got tired of singing to turtles and guys I'd just beat up". Now Change of Habit is a movie in which more songs wouldn't have looked out of place. Especially when you consider that Barbara McNair was a singer in her own right. I had a hard time watching the rage reduction scene the first time ( not helped by the fact that I watched it on German television) but after reading the book I have a new found admiration for the scene which had been extremely difficult to film. Also it must have been one of the first mentions of autism in popular culture, even though of course now we know a lot more about it.
THANK YOU Pink&Black...a wonderful and intelligent view...but let's talk about your sentence "In some of his movies from the mid sixties he moves as if he's lost all sense of rhythm and you can actually see he's embarrassed. But in Change of Habit he seems to be at ease, probably because he knew he was out of the movie contracts". My opinion is, before COH...most of the ELVIS PRESLEY Movies are "Image movies". From G.I. BLUES to SPEEDWAY (exception FLAMING STAR, WILD IN THE COUNTRY, FOLLOW THAT DREAM) are ELVIS IMAGE MOVIES, i mean ELVIS was always ELVIS ...AND not the character he was playing in the movies (Cowboy, Racedriver, Navydiver ...) i think he IS THE ONLY ONE (and of course with Parkers input) to keep this "ELVIS image on celluiod" for so long. Hooray for Hollywood and the Colonel, btw i like all of his movies, yes sir. Matt