Highly Overrated But Still Good

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

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

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

Documentary on Elvis Presley the singer, directed by Denis Sanders and chronicling the King's '69 comeback as he prepares for a big show in Las Vegas. Either you're entranced by Presley's megalomaniacal antics or you're not--he certainly is!--while the camera continues to trail right behind E.P. as if were the two were somehow attached. Veteran cinematographer Lucien Ballard's participation in this film is rather bizarre, but his solid work puts the whole thing over, even more so than the music. Capturing every star-twitch and running bead of sweat, the documentary does become a fascinating look at one person's stardom, his ritual. Director Sanders keeps the pacing lively, and keeps the songs coming, though most of the soundtrack is made up of cover tunes. Questions such as why Elvis felt the need to sing music already made popular by other artists never get addressed nor answered, which is why the film is mainly for devotees. The on-screen fans are quirky and interesting, probably more so than the star himself, while the movie provides some brief razzle-dazzle and tacky backstage glamour. **1/2 from ****

Pre-release information on the content of this two disc set was difficult to obtain, but there was a boast of over forty minutes of never-seen footage. This is also stated on the cover of the set. In actual fact it is just over thirty five minutes worth of material and most of it has been seen before.Disc 1 is the revised 2001 version of the film, exactly as previously released, with the 'Patch It Up' restoration feature. Disc 2 is a DVD release of the 1970 theatrical original plus the extras. The original movie has been shown on TV many times in various edits. This is the most complete version I have seen, but that just means it has all of the non-Elvis sequences. It is in the original mono and very poor mono at that. The sound has been much better on broadcast versions, and you may find you have to crank the volume up much higher than your normal setting to watch this disc.I was very disappointed with the extras which were the main reason for purchase. When the 2001 version premiered on TCM in the US they also ran a bonus sequence showing the four main songs that had featured in the original but had been dropped from the restored version – I've Lost You, Sweet Caroline, I Just Can't Help Believing, and Bridge Over Troubled Water. (They didn't show the concert opener That's All Right which was replaced with 'I Got A Woman in the restoration.) On this set we get the first three but not Bridge Over Troubled Water. However it seems a bit dumb to have these on Disc 2 as they are the same versions as shown in the main movie on the disc only in much lower quality, which looks like a VHS to DVD transfer.The complete list of extras is – rehearsals of You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, Eating Sequence (lunch break), Cattle Call/Baby Lets Play House/Don't, Farther Along, Oh Happy Day, and full stage show versions of I Just Can't Help Believing, Walk A Mile In My Shoes, I've Lost You, Sweet Caroline, Little Sister (Elvis seated with his Gretsch guitar), Stranger In The Crowd (suit with red leather trim and collar), and the After Show Party. The last named is what plays as the credits roll on the restored version of the movie, as I said three of the songs were shown on TCM and came straight from the movie, and a couple of the other items 'Little Sister and Oh Happy Day, have been doing the rounds for some time on bootlegs and web pages, so there it falls far short of the forty minutes of 'new material.Nice to have, but a chance missed to gather all of the available material in one place, why couldn't the songs that been on tape releases e.g. Make The World Go Away, have been included?

This is Elvis at his very best! Too bad they didn't include songs such as Little Sister/Get Back and Love me in the movie, since Elvis is playing electric guitar on both these songs and they are excellent performed. If you only want to have two DVD:s of Elvis at his very best then you should choose this one and the 68 comeback special. Of course there are plenty of other great shows and movies but these two are IMO hard to beat. I'm still hoping they will make a special edition of Elvis on tour, that should be another winner.RegardsLennart

Here's Elvis performing live at the International Hotel in Las Vegas over a period of six nights in 1970. He jokes and stumbles through abbreviated versions of his classics from the 50's and early 60's but gets serious and turns in great performances of songs that would be his concert staples for the rest of his career including Suspecious Minds, In The Ghetto and The wonder of You. He's backed by famed guitarist James Burton and a band that includes Chip young, Ronnie Tutt, David Briggs, Jerry Carrigan, Norbert Putnam and John Wilkerson with an orchestra led by Eddie Hinton and vocals by The Sweet Inspirations and Millie Kirkham and The Imperials Quartet. Besides the concert footage taken over six consecutive nights at the hotels are also rehearsal footage from MGM studios in Culver City, California. Celebrities in the audience that came out for the shows include Cary grant, Sammy Davis Jr. and George Hamilton. Elvis' Memphis Mafia stalwarts Joe Esposito, sonny West and Red West are here too. There's even a brief overhead shot of Col. Parker. Denis Sanders who directed this documentary had a sporadic career as a screenwriter and filmmaker of feature films, television and documentaries. He followed this the next year with his second music documentary called Soul to Soul which featured some of the great R&B acts of the time. These two films were definitely the highlight of his career. They got a big name cinematographer to do the photography in Lucien Ballard. He had been a Hollywood cinematographer since the 30's and had filmed Presley in roustabout. He was involved in a string of feature film hits in the 60's with The son's of Katie Elder, The Wild Bunch, Nevada Smith, The Getaway and True Grit. This is a must for any Elvis fan and even for non-fans it serves as a fairly good documentary of Elvis in peak physical form and having a fun and energetic time as a performer. White high collared jump suits with sequence and kung fu jump kicks are all here on a Vegas stage. He's comfortable in his element. The film originally ran at 107 minutes when it debuted in theaters in December of 1970. It's not a great concert film and not very imaginatively filmed or edited but since Elvis is such a legend it's worth a look. I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.