How sad is this?

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I watched this movie because I was curious about Elvis in movies. I didn't expect much, but I was happily surprised. So, when I came to look for more information about it, I was even more surprised this movie has such a low rating here. The story is very good, controversial even in many ways. It has no boring moments, the drama is constant. The acting is good for the time. The music is also appropriate for the setting, both Elvis's songs and the score by Lionel Newman is also very effective and good for the time when it was done. This might be a problem for many, the time. Judging a movie like this by today's standards is doing it a great injustice. I've seen lots of old movies that don't hold the attention as much as this. Even the acting of Elvis, being this his first movie, and him being a singer not an actor, was quite convincing. I've see lots of actors not pull the jealous rage the way he does.

I've seen this movie many many many times, and it is so good. would love to see this one AND King Creole colorized, WOW you have to admit that would be so cool, it would be like watching a movie ABOUT Elvis Presley with Elvis playing himself! especially this one, that or like watching a home movie of him with color and sound, im sorry guys I've seen what they did with Jailhouse Rock and WOWWWWWWlol! I also agree that if Elvis hadnt been involved with this movie it would have just went down as a B picture, it wouldn't have done well at the box office at all, and speaking of box office its a shame with all the fandom surrounding this picture at the time(56) its a wonder Elvis didn't at LEAST get an Oscar nomination! Michael Smith

"Love Me Tender" was filmed as "The Reno Brothers" and was a solid western drama concerning a train robbery by Confederates before word got around that the war was over. At issue is the cash from a Union payroll. The film was well written and the acting was universally solid. This was Richard Egan's and Debra Paget's movie; with Elvis Presley in a supporting role as Egan's hot headed kid brother.Therein lies the only fault with this picture. The lines of moviegoers stretched around Loew's huge and beautiful (3485 seat) Capitol Theater were wanting more of Elvis -- the nation's biggest star -- than the 4 songs in this movie. The assignment for Elvis was to play Egan's younger and immature kid brother, so (guess what?) Elvis comes across as young and immature. In 1956 he was faulted for bad acting, which was a bum rap.Any Civil War movie benefits from being told from the Confederate side, as we were the good guys and the best fighters. With 2 to 1 odds in numbers, we took down 2 blue-bellies for every johnny-reb that fought. Sixty-five percent of the Civil War casualties were Union. But anyway "Love Me Tender" isn't so much a Civil War movie as a post Civil War movie. Just don't get me started about Yankees, that's all.

This film is a solid Civil war drama w/ a strong cast and a realistic and believable main story and supporting subplots. In my opinion, the major drama unfolds from the train robbery early on in the film. Subsequent to that there's the subplot of shifting alliances among the ex-Rebel soldiers and the Union effort to recover the stolen $12,250 followed by the three angle romantic drama involving the Presley, Egan, and Paget characters. I think at first this subplot appears to be the main drama, but I watched the film twice and argue that it is a subplot (although the film title & title tune suggest differently). Neville Brand gives strong support as his greedy character is pivotal to the Presley's character arc. I wonder why Presley didn't have a flashback scene (to when the Egan character assures him "Deep from my heart" that he would never lie to the Presley character) after he's been convinced by the Brand character that the Egan character betrayed him.The movie has a nice quick pace. In the picnic scene when Presley learns Egan is leaving for California I like how in the background the Union soldiers subtly appear and the main story resumes. However, it's here in the picnic sequence that an earlier scene produces UNINTENDED LAUGHS when Presley is up on stage swinging his pelvis and singing 50's music to a clearly 50's female teen crowd AND it is is supposed to be 1865! It gets even funnier when there's a reaction shot of his "Ma" (who based on her Southern puritan values should be horrified at the sight) smiling happy as a clam. TOTALLY LAUGH OUT LOUD!