Released: November 15th, 1956
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Robert D. Webb
Film was #8 in the top 10 grossing films of 1956
This movie was the acting debut for Elvis and the first Elvis film I ever watched. I have always been sceptical of Elvis’s movies after reading and listening to so many fans criticize them for being nothing but fluff. I had it in my mind that I was never going to bother then with any of his movies because I wanted to know the real Elvis, not the one forced to perform in fluff movies.
After reading several books and learning of Elvis’s deeply rooted desire to act, I changed my mind about watching his movies. I began ordering them from Amazon in the order that they were released. However it wasn’t until quite recently that I actually started watching them. They sat unopened in my library due to a real need to not watch Elvis flop as an actor.
I couldn’t have been more misinformed. When I finally sat down one day to watch this, the first of Elvis’s films, I was mesmerized from the opening scene through to the last tear-jerking scene. He’s just so damned good looking that you really can’t take your eyes off him whether he could act or not and low and behold…he can act too!
The story summary goes something like this: Elvis plays Clint Reno, the youngest of the Reno brothers who stays home while his brothers went to fight in the American Civil War for the Confederate Army. The family is tragically informed that Clint’s oldest brother, Vance, (Richard Egan) has been killed on the battlefield. However Vance didn’t really die and comes back from the war to find that his old girlfriend, Cathy, (Debra Paget) has married Clint. Sure, Vance puts on the act that he accepts this union saying “We always wanted Cathy in the family”. Nonetheless, the family must struggle with this issue daily. While wearing the uniform and still a Confederate soldier, Vance is a party to a train robbery where he steals a significant amount of federal government money. His cohorts in the robber become enraged when Vance decides he is going to return the money and a gunfight ensues. Tragically, it is Clint who is killed in the gunfight at the conclusion of the movie.
We will visit with Debra Paget in another of my Elvis series, The Women in Elvis’s Life, as it is reported that Elvis fell head over heels in love with her while filming this movie together. The only real constant woman in Elvis’s life at this time was Gladys and she became so upset at the end of this movie about Elvis’s character dying that Elvis told Parker he didn’t want to do anymore movies where he dies so as not to upset his mom again.
Through the years, Parker insisted that Elvis would always sing during his movies. It was something that Elvis hated because it truly caused him never to be taken as a serious actor. Parker’s only motivation was the money that a soundtrack album could bring him but Elvis was motivated only by his need to be taken as a serious actor. Over the years many well placed critics and movie experts have lamented the fact that Elvis was never allowed to just act because he truly was extremely talented and would have been a great film star if not for the fluff movies that Parker locked him into.
Elvis could indeed act and I enjoyed this movie a lot. There were only 3 songs included in this film, “Love Me Tender” which to this day is probably one of Elvis’s most famous songs. “We’re Gonna Move”, a song that I happen to love and which was done in a believable setting with Elvis (Clint) singing for the family on the porch after dinner. The other song was “Let Me” which Elvis (Clint) played while on stage at the local fairgrounds, yet another fairly believable setting although throughout the movie there’s no real reference to Clint as a musician. It seems to be just understood. And I reference to “believable setting” because as you’ll see as we progress through his movies, Elvis was forced to break into song at some of the most ridiculous and absurd times when no real man would be caught dead doing so, for instance on the beach, in a speeding car, surfing, etc. Elvis was embarrassed by these movies and I think it was the beginning of his personal decline to be forced to continue doing them. At some point he knew that he wasn’t ever going to be taken as a serious actor.
Love Me Tender is a really good movie. Not only is the depiction of life directly around the time of the Civil War quite interesting to observe and true to reality so I’m told, but Elvis is really good in this movie as are his co-stars, Richard Egan and Debra Paget. Not all Elvis movies were tripe and Love Me Tender proves this to be true.
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