"Jailhouse Rock" (1957)

Rating:  PG

Genre: Drama, Musical

Directed By: Richard Thorpe

Written By: Guy Trosper, Guy Troper, Richard Trosper

Released: October 17^th, 1957

Runtime: 96 minutes

Studio: MGM Home Entertainment

Summary:

Following an altercation at a bar one night, Vince Everett is sentenced to one year in jail for manslaughter. While there, it materialises his cellmate used to be a country singer and introduces him to the record business. Vince takes a shine to the idea and decides to become a singer when his sentence is over, but quickly becomes disillusioned by the whole thing. Once out, with the help of a new friend however, he makes the decision to start his own label and becomes an overnight sensation. But he must remember that in gaining fame and fortune, he mustn’t forget those who initially helped him get there.

Review:

Since it’s Elvis’ birthday today, I thought I’d review a film of his today.

Despite Elvis’ first film, “Love Me Tender” supposedly being a bit of a flop in the critics’ eyes, three more films were to follow: “Loving You”, “Jailhouse Rock” and “King Creole”. From a young age I’ve always loved Elvis but it is for his singing career more than his movie career. I can’t say the man can’t act, but I feel like most of his characters are sort of the same; much the same persona and traits. And frankly, without him being in them I don’t think the films on their own would exactly grab much attention. There isn’t much to the plots in my opinion. From what I’ve seen most seem to follow the same plot construction: boy discovers he’s got a flair for singing and takes off to pursue such a career, he’s usually from a broken background, and his journey usually involves a pretty girl – That’s basically the jist. But at the same time, I don’t think this matters much because anyone who’s watching his movies are watching them for him anyway and will only be more than happy to just hear the man sing. 

Not a whole lot really happens in this to be honest, as I say – I felt, at least. I felt like a most of what happens, happens through the dialogue so you have to really pay attention when you’re watching it (I found this in “Loving You” as well) because you could miss something and next thing he’s started belting some fool.  There’s not really a lot of tension built in any of the scenes. Like there’s one now where he’s being whipped in the prison, which if such a scene was portrayed nowadays the tension would be built up enormously...but in this case, the scene just sort of happened and was over and he was being brought back into his cell again and there was no real ‘umph’, shall we say, to the whole procedure. Normally a scene like that would really bother me to watch (it’s a no-go area for me, I just can’t) but like it was there and over without any build up. Good for me, but in a general sense, not so good! The most exciting parts happen towards the end, really.

I felt too that in conjunction with the plot not being the most compelling, the characters weren’t developed or delved into as well as they could have been. I felt sort of disconnected from them all the time – even Vince a little because the only ‘deep’ thing we learn about him is his fixation on money and his frequent ignorance. We didn’t get much insight into his background and how he ended up where he is now. The girl he meets, Peggy, sort of just appears and ends up staying with the movie and I never felt like I really knew her story at all. I didn’t understand why she should be so compelled to help him with his music career when he was as bad-mannered as he was towards her, and she literally only met him for like two minutes at a bar, and next thing she had him in a recording studio talking with him as if they’d known each other for a lot longer amount of time. The progression just felt a bit disjointed, which may have contributed to the insipid feel of the plot.

Although, there were some one-liners I had to laugh at. There was one scene where he was at Peggy’s house after getting out of jail and her parents were talking about the progression of Jazz music (I think) and there Vince is looking completely bemused at the whole conversation. When asked for his opinion he bluntly replies “Lady, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” and walks out of the house. 

Apparently, Elvis himself choreographed the ‘Jailhouse Rock’ scene. Incidentally, this was probably the best scene in the film. The title song was on the top of the charts in the United States for seven weeks, while an EP featuring the title song as well as “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care” became a perennial best-seller!!! I would reckon it’s one of Elvis’ most well-known songs too.

If you like Elvis then you’ll enjoy this.

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