Apparently Elvis didn't think much of any of his films. According to "Being Elvis", a recent biography by Ray Connolly, Elvis hated the repetitive nature of the plots - same story different location. He felt he had never been given serious roles where he could show what he could do as an actor - he certainly didn't have to compete with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen for the roles in "Fun in Acapulco" and "Girls, Girls, Girls".
Although he definitely had a point about the films toward the end of his Hollywood career, a number of his earlier films were actually based on novels -"King Creole", "Follow That Dream", "Flaming Star" and this one, "Wild in the Country" - stories that had more substance going in.
"Wild in the Country" has elements we expect from an Elvis picture, but then it gets complicated. This was made a few years after James Dean and Sal Mineo had shown that troubled teens were now a fact of life. Elvis plays Glenn Tyler, one of the troubled. After being placed on probation for injuring his brother in a fight, he receives counselling from psychologist, Irene Sperry (Hope Lange).
The not inconsiderable charms of Millie Perkins and Tuesday Weld can't compete when Irene discovers that Glenn has a talent for writing and Glenn discovers that he has feelings for the older woman. In reality, Hope Lange was only two years older than 26 year-old Elvis.
The film has a script by Clifford Odets, although one suspects he would not have considered "Wild in the Country" as his finest hour. He originally had Irene Sperry's character committing suicide at the end, it was changed, but it possibly reflected how Odets felt about selling out to Hollywood.
However the film has a lot going on with well-defined characters and great locations in the Napa valley. If Elvis felt that most of his films only had stories to separate the songs, that was not the case in "Wild in the Country", there are a few songs, but the film is mainly the drama he craved.
I find a lot of his films are fun to watch in the same way as "Beach Party" movies are. But there are a handful of films that have a depth he may not have appreciated at the time - "Wild in the Country" is one of them.
