I'll tell you why so serious

Excellent adaptation.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Frankie & Johnny is in my opinion, not one of the better Elvis movies. But the star power was out in full force: Donna Doglas, Harry Morgan, Sue Ane Langdon.Elvis is a river boat gambler/hired singing help looking for a luck red head to help him find his fortune. His singing costar and paramour that is of blonde persuasion does not care for this behavior. Come for the songs, not the story!

The saga of Frankie And Johnny gets a lighter telling in this Elvis Presley film. Elvis plays an entertainer on a Mississippi riverboat circa the turn of the last century with a real gambling problem. His partner in the act is Donna Douglas late of the Beverly Hillbillies who would only marry him if he gives up his ways. Want to bet on the chances that that would happen?Donna and the King work for Anthony Eisley whose number one girl Nancy Kovack, the infamous Nellie Bly has returned and an old gypsy said that a redhead would bring Elvis fabulous good luck. But that causes problems with both Eisley and Douglas.A few new numbers were written for the film, but Frankie And Johnny has mostly traditional ballads of the era such as Down By The Riverside and When The Saints Go Marching In. All done in a New Orleans Dixieland style, most agreeable with Presley.Some others in the cast are Harry Morgan as Elvis's accompanist, Audrey Christie as Morgan's wife, Robert Strauss as Eisley's dimwitted bouncer, and Sue Ane Langdon who spends the entire film absolutely plastered. Watching her complain about not being able to get and hold a man all I could think is that if she drew a sober breath once in a while she might have a chance.Fans of the King should like this one.

"Frankie and Johnny" is one in the long line of musicals which Elvis Presley churned out in the sixties. It has no connection with the Al Pacino/Michelle Pfeiffer film of the same name from 1991, but is instead fairly loosely based upon the well-known American folk-song. It is set some time in the late nineteenth century, probably around 1880 or 1890, although the exact date is never stated. Johnny and his girlfriend Frankie are performers on a Mississippi riverboat; Johnny is also a compulsive gambler, and as the boat has a casino on board he has plenty of opportunities to gamble. The film deals with the complications caused in their relationship by Johnny's gambling habit and Frankie's jealousy of his friendship with an attractive redhead named Nellie Bly. Johnny's interest in Nellie arises from the fact that a gypsy fortune-teller has informed him that a red-haired woman will bring him luck, but the jealous Frankie suspects that their relationship goes much deeper.One of the problems of casting a rock star in a Victorian period drama is that rock didn't actually exist in the Victorian era. The makers of this film are not really all that concerned with period accuracy- some of the music we hear sounds suspiciously like jazz, which didn't really exist in the 1880s, and even the song "Frankie and Johnny" itself was not published in its modern form until the 1920s. Somebody, however, obviously realised that rock-and-roll would be anachronistic, so the star gets to sing a series of bland, totally forgettable easy-listening numbers.Elvis was always fairly laid-back as an actor, but in this film he doesn't seem to make much effort as a singer either, being content just to stroll his way through the film. The rest of the cast are no better; in his film career Elvis played opposite some pretty obscure leading ladies, but Donna Douglas is one of the least memorable of the bunch. I was not surprised to discover that this was the last film she made in a brief cinema career. About the complicated and often far-fetched plot, the less said the better. Most Elvis Presley films these days are unlikely to appeal to anyone other than his many devoted admirers, but I suspect that even they will find themselves feeling a bit short-changed by this one. 4/10

Yes, this is a truly bad film. While the 1890s (?) riverboat setting is a change of pace from go-go dancers, the filmmakers still manage to make it a formulaic Elvis dud. Donna Douglas is obviously miscast, with a dubbed singing voice that doesn't even match her speaking tones. Director De Cordova's lack of high-end filmmaking experience is clearly evident - this film indeed, as a previous user has stated, evokes a cheesy TV movie from the 60s. The sets are designed and lighted horribly. The film is a complete bore. The long shots of the riverboat appear borrowed from "Show Boat," or perhaps "Huckleberry Finn."It's a shame they rarely gave Presley a good vehicle to showcase his talents. His sexiness and vulnerability are constantly being overshadowed by stupidity, garishness AND REALLY BAD SONGS.