Watch List for 8/24/2026

 

Watched: Swingers from the Sixties, Over There (The Knack), Over Here (Elvis)

THE KNACK … and HOW TO GET IT (1965) --- This is what director Richard Lester was up to between A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, him on to things mod, hip, gear, whatever else made up Brit slang of the time. We’d learn the language just for seeing enough off the Isles, fully a third of what the Liberty showed me during the mid-sixties British boom. Did however skip The Knack as I would Having a Wild Weekend and Ferry Cross the Mersey, latter even though I’d bought a ticket for the Saturday co-feature which was Tomb of Ligeia, also UK-shot (a story told here). Lester had unique style seen initially on over-there television where the Beatles tabbed him for loopy humor that would liven their first and second features. The director did much with jumpy edits, funny reactions from staid elders watching kids loose on streets and living it up. You’d think there never was a war and years of austerity that followed, this still evident for beat-down spots where virtually all of The Knack was shot, houses distressed rather than mere sets to look that way. Why fake what was all too real in daily life? Postwar locations in London as well as Berlin had to sidestep bombing damage still not repaired unless they wanted to focus on such, which mid-60’s celebrations of youth did not. The Knack was based on a play which was popular despite what its stage director called a collapsing third act. You get that from the movie in spite of Lester to partial rescue with energy he seemed never to run out of. Such talent belonged to times where it burned brightest. When that time passed, Lester and others as dynamic would face workaday where found and projects not necessarily aimed at strengths. The Knack is delightful when it delights, a movie perhaps best watched as “Best Of” highlights, glimpses of what had made the sixties so trippy. Interview extras on the Region Two Blu-Ray see each of participants, Richard Lester, Rita Tushingham among others, asked “what it was like” to live amidst a swinging London scene during such souped-up epoch, them saying they best understood it from hindsight, that while it was happening, there was more a blur from swirling past so fast. Couldn’t all of us say that about all our young years?

TRIPLE ELVIS --- I have twice this week seen Elvis drive irresponsibly on public roads, offenses occurring in Live a Little, Love a Little, and Spinout. He raced too in Speedway but principally at the Charlotte Motor Speedway where seeming all races took place that year (1968). Speedway also references wild animals escaped from Charlotte’s zoo, but to my memory there was not and still isn’t a zoo in Charlotte. Nearest such attraction is Asheboro or Columbia, SC, latter which we visited twenty years ago and learned how fast gorillas can run. In fact, they don’t run, but lope at least twenty feet per exert, which made me realize there is no escaping a gorilla if he/she proposes to eat you. Speedway was the first Elvis I ever walked out on. Same annum saw also The Green Slime abandoned. Last week was occasion to see if I’m more tolerant with age. Got through Speedway and did not altogether dislike it. Studio interiors sub for outdoors (a trailer park), sets are plywood, “money” shots take place at a disco where Elvis and co-star Nancy Sinatra sing. She has but one solo (did Colonel Parker draw lines to prevent another Ann-Margret steal?). Elvis socks a hole in a door that looks like cardboard any of us could penetrate with a fingertip. Speedway doesn’t suggest $2.8 million spent, but that's how it was. Elvis raked-off at least a million, plus Nancy took more than average Presley girls. Loss to Metro was $450K. They took a hit also with Stay Away, Joe, suggesting a public now allergic to Elvis movies. Speedway if anything confirmed this. Live a Little, Love a Little was thus necessary reboot. “Watch Elvis click with all these chicks,” said posters, but in fact he clicks with but one, and how, because here for a first time, Elvis spends an unwed night with a “chick,” Michele Carey lately of El Dorado. All this and no clergy present.

Here was nuclear blast to the Elvis universe, though I’m not sure how many by then noticed or cared. He “swings” to extent of occasional profanities, “What the hell…,” a few damns. He’s stalked by Michele’s manic-pixie-dream girl, that sort explained to me at time of Greenbriar’s My Man Godfrey post. Live a Little, Love a Little is 60s closest to screwball spirit. There’s even Rudy Vallee a Preston Sturges hark-back. Other aspects depart Presley formula. There’s a good song about a little less conversation and a lot more lovin,’ something to that effect. It plays today more than most tunes from Elvis movies. I like how he worked often with veterans. In addition to Vallee, there was Sterling Holloway, Don Porter, Joan Shawlee. Whose idea? I’ll propose Norman Taurog’s. He directed all three of what I watched and just show me who could have done them better. Word is, Elvis liked Norman a lot. A dad figure? He could use upgrade on poor Vernon shambling around Graceland. Handlers had to try things different for Live a Little, Love a Little, as Elvis so far constituted didn’t sell anymore. How many soundtrack albums were his films moving? --- because so far as the Colonel was concerned, platters were a best if not only good reason to keep making features.

Third and last selection was Spinout. This one I saw and liked at the Liberty in 1966. In fact, it may have been the last Elvis that seemed at least OK to me. Joe Pasternak produced as he had the majestic Girl Happy from a year before. Pasternak spent more than Sam Katzman did on cheaters Kissin’ Cousins and Harum Scarum, the latter losing money despite a low budget of $1.9 million and imagine how cheap it looked for Elvis collecting more than half that. Kissin’ Cousins was a hit which I bet got that way just for playing the Liberty to jammed seating with lines up the block for Sunday open. Hold my beer, Ben-Hur. Spinout being Pasternak cost $2.6 million but frankly has not the polish of Girl Happy, let alone Viva Las Vegas. Elvis is flanked by Shelly Faberes, Deborah Walley, Diane McBain, each familiar to such setting, plus Cecil Kellaway and Una Merkel to represent industry past. I recalled Kellaway from doomed descent to find the beast from 20,000 fathoms, and that if nothing else resonated. Elvis always had comic sidekicks, two in Spinout (three if you count Deborah Walley), each less annoying than Bill Bixby in Speedway conning Elvis out of race winnings and losing it all on horses. Such aspect of Elvis formula bothered me then and still does. Do Presley lead ladies continue to be tagged by fans wanting to hear again what they recalled of the King from sixty years ago? Celebs tend to be more forthcoming when you pipe the unexpected, like with Shirley Eaton at a western show in Winston-Salem (imagine Shirley Eaton in Winston-Salem for any reason). So did I speak of Goldfinger? No --- Eight on the Lam --- and she was plenty animated about that.