Double Trouble

Amusing Elvis fare, in which E is stuck protecting a wealthy heiress (Day) from her greedy uncle (Williams) who wants her killed before her 18th birthday so it won't be discovered that he's been stealing from her inheritance. Of course, this same date also explains why Elvis is reluctant to hook up with the petite Brit, and enables the evil uncle to send bumbling Belgian cops on E's trail for kidnapping. Also, groupie Romain turns out to be after more than E's autograph -- she's in the employ of the uncle too! Elvis sings some pretty good songs, some pretty bad songs, and gets involved in some funny situations. He even kills a guy in a fight (well, actually, he does that in a lot of his movies).

Did frozen funds inspire this Anglicization of Presley? hmmmmm......

In this one, singer Guy Lambert (played by Elvis) is touring Europe. Actually, most of the film takes place in Belgium. Lambert is all tangled up in a spy, diamond smuggling and love affair. All that is very complicated for nothing because the movie is not so good. Actually, if you're not an unconditional fan of Elvis, you could easily skip this one. You won't miss anything. For the fans though, Elvis sings a few songs including: Long-Legged Girl, Could I Fall in Love and a unique version of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Annette Day is not very convincing in the role of Jill, the girl who's falling for Elvis. I gave it a 5.

The best Elvis movies were a trifle (or more than a trifle) surreal. They were slender plots like clothes lines to hang his songs on like Dali's melting watches.

"Double Trouble" is plumped out with a bit more story as Elvis gets involved with jewel smugglers.

The cast is pretty good, too. John Williams, Leon Askin and the Wiere Brothers. The Wiere Brothers, remnamts of Vaudeville, were famous as an acrobatic dance trio. I've caught some of their stuff on Youtube.

I usually fast forward through his songs but this one has "Long-legged girl with the short dress on," a favorite of mine. And "I love only one girl." Rank plagiarism and that's why it's good.

The problem here is that Elvis starts out too truculent for my taste and even sarcastic. Unintentionally amusing is Elvis tossing a girl out of his life for being too young, considering Priscilla's age when they met.

This movie isn't "Lawrence of Arabia." It's not even "Viva, Las Vegas." And his co-star isn't Ann-Margaret. Though they do go to Sweden (by way of the studio).

Whether one likes this flick depends strongly on one's tolerance for Elvis movies. Like black olives, they can be an acquired taste. I know. I used to hate black olives.

This story has a bit more going for it than your average elvis film! Most of the time, it was just girl trouble, which always seemed to revolve around the elvis. In this one, "guy" goes on tour in europe and gets caught up in jewel smuggling operation. But first he meets jill (annette day, who was SO much younger than he), who decides she's going to marry him. Even before they have kissed! For most of the movie, she's dressed up as a young school girl, just to make the story even stranger. The usual mix of catchy tunes (long legged girl) and a bunch of forgettable songs. He actually sings old macdonald, at one point. Some familiar faces: jill's uncle is john williams, who was also the chauffeur in sabrina. Leon askin (general burkhalter!) is in here as the inspector. Check out the wiere brothers in wikipedia dot org... they were an act in vaudeville, and made several film and tv appearances from 1930s to the 1960s. They are they coppers who bring guy in for questioning, and probably the best part of the film. The storyline is odd, the choice of musical numbers is odd, and there's just a strange chemistry between everyone. The first half is slow as molasses, but it does pick up about halfway through. It's just okay. Of course, elvis fans should watch it, for historical reasons. Directed by the usual director norman taurog.

Hear Elvis say "bikkies" (a kick for me, as one who grew up with that contraction of "biscuits," in America known as cookies), see Elvis lay his kenpo down on a bad guy who dies as a result, see Elvis drive a VW bug, witness Elvis smash windows, marvel at Elvis in a mustache and glasses mask, and watch him beat up a beautiful woman! Those are some of the highlights, anyway. In truth, this film is among my very least favorite of Elvis films, even judging by the somewhat unique standards of the '60s travelogue Technicolor musicals that became the standard by 1962. The formula had worn thin by 1965 ("Frankie And Johnnie," "Harum Scarum," "Paradise, Hawaiian Style"), to say the least, and -- other than some bright points in "Spinout" and the entirety of "Easy Come, Easy Go" (like "Double Trouble," shot in 1966...for some reason, I like that crazy film) -- nothing got better, in my opinion, until the formula changed radically with 1968's "Stay Away, Joe" and "Live A Little, Love A Little."

The period 1965-1967 was Elvis' nadir, in other words, though the May, 1966 Nashville sessions (that yielded the immaculate "How Great Thou Art" gospel album and a few stellar secular songs, including a definitive take on one of Bob Dylan's songs) and recently-surfaced home recordings from that period show all too well how phenomenal Elvis' talent was at the time, a contrast that would anger and frustrate anyone who cared about his place in American and world culture and history. But we have what we have, and the criminal waste of talent that to a great extent represented Elvis' film career during this time is undeniable but shouldn't necessarily result in us writing off the results out of hand for that reason alone. There are a few moments in this film that are good, and a few when Elvis seems to actually be engaged rather than bored with the whole proceedings and just sleepwalking through it to fulfill contractual obligations.

There're some great actors in supporting roles, too, like Leon Askin (General Burkhalter!), Chips Rafferty, John Williams, Norman Rossington (the only actor to appear in films with the Beatles and Elvis), and Michael Murphy. Annette Day is kind of lackluster in the lead female role. Yvonne Romain is much more like it. And the Wiere Brothers have always irritated the hell out of me in this film -- wish they were not in it, because they really stupid things up.

The songs are not the greatest even compared to other songs from Elvis movies of this time, but I do like the title track, "Long Legged Girl" (a tasty song, actually, written by Joy Byers, who usually contributed great songs even to otherwise not-so-great movies, such as "Let Yourself Go" in "Speedway"), and the jazzy "City By Night." "Could I Fall In Love" is a nice ballad, a duet of Elvis with Elvis, but the entire June, 1966 session for this movie suffered from sonic problems and I believe it's one that Elvis complained vociferously about. I also believe that Elvis walked out on recording "Old McDonald" before he'd produced an acceptable master take, being totally disgusted by the task, and the master was spliced from what the engineers had captured. Not his greatest recorded moment, anyway. And, darn it, it (and the rest of the soundtrack) was recorded on my second birthday.

IMDb mixes up the screen character credits for Chips Rafferty and Norman Rossington but, to be fair, so does the end title sequence in the film. Oops.