A Rock And Roll Outing With The King

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 3, 2011 9:40PM

The Sound Opinions at the Movies series is one of our favorites right now, happily perched at the very busy intersection of pop music and popular movies and hosted by two genuine fans who clearly love what they're doing. They've gone about as far back into the past as they can to pull their latest title, Jailhouse Rock. The King's star is rather dim these days, and it's good to give him some love, but can't help being disappointed they picked the third-best movie to do it.

Don't get us wrong. Jailhouse Rock is great. For an Elvis movie. Besides the iconic dance number and song, there movie is a relatively gritty teenage drama. Presley's sneering portrayal of convict Vince Everett still reads as punk, and the story arc meshes perfectly with the dangerous vibe he exploited so deftly in his rise to fame. But these strengths are also its weakneses: the imagery has been mined so many times that it has lost its power. The Elvis of Jailhouse Rock has become inseparable from our idea of him, of the "Young Elvis" postage stamp.

If you're going to go with Elvis in his James Dean facsimle days, Michael Curitz's King Creole, from only a year later, is the way to go. With a veteran diretor and a more than competent cast including Vic Morrow and Walter Mathau, Elvis not only had a good script (originally set in Chicago, but transported to New Orleans), Elvis's ambition and hunger were channeled expertly into a complex character, the best he ever portrayed on screen. If you're going to introduce Elvis to a new generation of fans, I'd go with Elvis - That's the Way It Is, Denis Sanders' endearing portrait of the Elvis phenomenon as it moved into its new Las Vegas digs. Sanders captured rehearsals, behind-the-scenes action and funny bits with the fans as well as the star-studded opening night, and cooked it into something in between a biography and a concert film.

If Jailhouse Rock is what we can get, we'll take it. It's fun (for an Elvis movie) and the music is good (for any movie). But if this is how we're introducing new generations to the pop icon that was Elvis, we won't expect a Presley renaissance any time soon.

Jailhouse Rock screens at the Music Box (3733 N. Southport) on Tuesday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $9 online, $8 for WBEZ members and $10 at the door, cash only