Elvis

This is a well done biography of Elvis Presley. Director John Carpenter put an enigmatic puzzle of a life together for a brilliant presentation. Kurt Russell did the best job of his career in recreating the essence of Elvis. Uncanny resemblance and mannerisms made this film so interesting to watch. Elvis fan or not, this movie is a piece of pop art. We get a glimpse of what made Elvis mean so many different things to so many different people.

Russell's father, Bing, plays Vernon Presley. Shelley Winters plays Elvis' mom. Season Hubley portrays Priscilla Presley and Pat Hingle is cast as Col. Tom Parker.

Ronnie McDowell provides the singing voice of "The King".

Directed by John Carpenter and starring KURT RUSSELL, this 1979 TV Special ELVIS is a great slice of tv and cultural history. Despite its corniest and inaccurate moments, each scene is a template for years of biographical cinema to come. From a 40 year standpoint, this movie is enjoyable, cute, surrealistically funny, and a quick, comic book bootleg of the story of ELVIS. These days, some may include ELVIS in a TWIN PEAKS fest, as this viewer is somehow certain that David Lynch himself is a fan of this film.

This movie is one of those "WOW!" movies. Not because it's the greatest movie of all time, but because it surprised me. Not only was it a T.V. movie, but it was on Elvis. I can safely say as many impersonators as there are there was only one Elvis, but I can also safely say that Kurt Russel came extremely close to being the real thing. It was one of the greatest impersonations that I have ever seen. He had me believing that it was really him. I learned a lot about Elvis' life from watching this movie. And don't led the television part of it let you stray-it's actually a really fantastic film! And Kurt Russel could've been Elvis' twin :)

This magnificently produced biop of Elvis Presley contains an eerie, almost frightening portrayal of Presley by Kurt Russell, who literally seems to be inhabited by Elvis' spirit.

Physically, the movie is perfect in casting and location - you could see a freeze of any frame of this film and know it's about Elvis.

All that being said, die-hard Elvis fans will be left frustrated by the movies' gaping holes and unnecessary inaccuracies, the biggest of which is that the film stops in 1970 when Elvis lived until 1977. One can understand having to leave out parts and truncating others but this film went too far. There is nothing indicating Elvis' drug use, which began in the army; nothing that touches on the other women in his life while he was with Priscilla; he and Priscilla seem to be talking divorce in 1969; Elvis' Vegas opening is combined with his later touring - and the concert opens with "2001: A Space Odyssey" - no way; Elvis rants and raves about the movies he has to make, but it's 1968, he's supposed to be doing his comeback special and he's just about free of the films; and on and on. For dramatic effect, the circumstances of his mother's death were changed so that Elvis is present in the hospital room - yet the true description of Elvis learning of his mother's death in the Peter Guralnick book is much more harrowing.

Interestingly, however, the film does touch on Elvis' lethal enmeshment with his mother and the "twinless twin" syndrome, showing him often talking with Jesse. If they could draw on those elements, the producers certainly could have come up with a more accurate script.

Elvis Presley was probably the most beloved entertainer of the twentieth century, and one of our most tragic figures. People have talked about Elvis as an ignorant hick who couldn't handle sucess. Lets face it, people who grow up barefoot poor and suddenly become the greatest entertainer in the world don't grow on trees. Someone with the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job couldn't deal with that kind of meteoric rise to fame! Elvis was a case of too much too soon. Kurt Russell had been in a film with Elvis when he was a child actor and this movie was probably the first one made of his life. It was released in February of 1979 a year and a half after Elvis's death. Its hard to believe that John Carpenter directed it, I always think of him for Halloween and Escape From New York, he did a great job I think. Kurt Russell looked enough like Elvis to pass muster with me, but he did more then that, he captured Elvis's soul and made him a flesh and blood character, not the one that you read about in The National Enquirer. I remember what I liked most about this film was its sensitive portrait of Elvis and his mother. It was said that there was never a more devoted son and Shelly Winters did a great job as Gladys and the scenes of Elvis at her deathbed and when she passed away are heartbreaking. People who knew him said that he was never the same afterwards. I have always wondered that if his mother had lived that he would have had a lot of the problems that he did that eventually led to his death at the age of 42.