Elvis Presley – Blue Hawaii (Part 14, the last)

BLUE HAWAII
– Postcard production and… the beginning of the Presley formula-
(Part 14, the last)

Blue Hawaii

Los Angeles Times columnist John L. Scott noted in his November 1961 review that while Presley’s latest film, eventually retitled from “Hawaiian Beach Boy” to “Blue Hawaii,” “will do a great deal for ‘Pacific Paradise,’ with its foaming surf, palm trees, luau and a few luxury hotels, it will do very little for Elvis fans (what age group does he really appeal to these days?)… Maybe one day Elvis will finally get a straight-ahead role and we’ll find out whether he can act or not? “

However, before millions of viewers around the world had the opportunity to verify the above words for themselves and to see for themselves the validity – or otherwise – of all the theses raised in the above-quoted opinion, RCA released an LP containing fourteen of the fifteen songs recorded by Presley for the new Paramount Pictures production. The album, like the finished film, did not include the song “Steppin’ Out Of Line.”

According to some sources, one of the reasons why the joint composition by Fred Wise, Ben Weisman and Dolores Fuller did not end up on the soundtrack album could have been the time limitations of vinyl records at the time. More likely, however, is that RCA simply found no reason to include on the thirty-two-minute-plus longplay a song that does not actually appear in the film.

The album “Blue Hawaii” hit stores on Friday, October 20, 1961, and as predicted by Billboard magazine, which announced at the beginning of the month (in its article from October 2) that “this should be something big! “, it soon turned out to be one of the best-selling longplays in Elvis’ entire discography to date, and with time also one of the most important albums in his entire artistic output.

“There is no doubt that Elvis found this combination (of Hawaiian music and romantic compositions) not only satisfactory but also very much to his taste (Bing Crosby’s equally Hawaiian-style ‘Harbor Lights’ was, after all, one of the first songs he ever recorded) ,” notes the album’s description on Elvis The Music. “In addition, the Radio Recorders sessions featured some of the best musicians from Nashville and Los Angeles .”

Full of melodic, atmospheric, romantic and catchy Hawaiian melodies, the album was immediately warmly received by listeners and began to disappear from store shelves at a rapid pace. It is estimated that by the end of December 1961, sales of “Blue Hawaii” exceeded one million copies (and as you can imagine, this was not the final result)! For such an impressive result, a few days before Christmas, on December 21, 1961, the Music Publishers Association of America (RIAA) awarded Elvis another gold record. And this was just the beginning of a long list of successes achieved by Presley’s Hawaiian album.

Just a few days after its premiere, on October 29, the album “Blue Hawaii” debuted at number seventy-five on the popular Billboard weekly Pop Album Chart. From there, in the first weeks of the following month, it jumped to the very top of the list, which it did not leave for the next twenty weeks (and it is worth adding that the album spent a total of thirty-nine weeks in the top ten of the list)! It was an absolute record! A record that no other artist has managed to break for decades!

The album enjoyed equally great popularity outside the US. In the UK, “Blue Hawaii” spent a total of sixty-five weeks on the chart (plus six more in 1977), including eighteen weeks (the charts from January 13 and from February 24 to June 16, 1962) at number one!

The soundtrack from Presley’s new film also reached the top of the Italian chart Hit Parade Italia (charting dated September 15, 1962) and number seventeen on the German Offiziele Top 100.

“The soundtrack album exceeded everyone’s expectations, selling more than two million copies, a record that is hard to match in all time, ” noted Elvis The Music. “ It also spawned a No. 2 pop hit, ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love,’ a song that will forever be synonymous with Elvis.”

The single with the aforementioned ballad appeared in stores on November 21, 1961. Interestingly, as reported by the Elvis The Music website quoted above, in order to obtain Colonel Parker’s consent to use the previously released longplay version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” (Parker was not in favor of releasing material from LPs on singles) on a single, RCA had to guarantee him payment for one million copies sold!

Of course, with such good material, achieving the above result seemed to be only a matter of time. The song immediately became an unimaginable hit and already in early December (listing from December 10, 1961) appeared on the Billboard weekly Hot 100. The song debuted at number fifty-seven, from where after only nine consecutive weeks it soared almost to the very top of the aforementioned ranking. “Can’t Help Falling In Love” came in second, losing its place on the podium only to the composition “Peppermint Twist” by the American group Joey Dee and the Starliters.

The aforementioned winning song was yet another example, after Chubby Checker’s now legendary “Let’s Twist Again,” of a new musical fad that had taken over the United States in the early sixties. Namely, the twist. A new, distinctive type of dance inspired by rock ‘n’ roll music.

I mention it here for a reason. The rhythmic composition “Rock-A-Hula Baby,” released on the back of “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” was to be, as the advertising slogans proclaimed, ” Presley’s answer to this new musical craze .” ” RCA was flooded with mail from Presley fans asking for a twist by the rock singer ,” the reviews of the time wrote.

The song, like “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” entered the Billboard charts on December 10, 1961 (it debuted at number sixty-two). However, unlike the hit ballad, it didn’t even make it to the top ten. Despite the hopes placed in it, Presley’s offering “stuck” at a rather distant twenty-third position.

The weaker performance of the B-side did not, however, prevent the single from selling well – it is estimated that the album sold over one million copies and achieved another gold record status (Presley’s twenty-ninth in his career to date).

Across the pond, the situation was much the same. In the UK, the single, featuring the songs “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and “Rock-A-Hula Baby”, entered the chart in early 1962 (on the chart dated February 7, 1962) and after spending a few weeks on the chart, rose to number one (where it remained for four weeks).

“Can’t Help Falling In Love” also reached number one in South Africa and reached number two in New Zealand and Sweden. In Australia, the song stalled at number three and on the Canadian Hit Parade charts, it landed just outside the top three at number four.

The success of the ballad from Presley’s eighth film, considered to be one of the most beautiful, important and recognizable love songs of all time, turned out to be timeless. And as one of Elvis’ biographers, Collin Escott, aptly put it years later, ” although the song was thrown into the movie ‘Blue Hawaii,’ like ‘White Christmas’ or ‘Unchained Melody,’ it took on a life of its own – outside the film for which it was intended .”

In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Can’t Help Falling In Love” number 403 on its list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

In some countries, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, West Germany, South Africa, Israel, Singapore and Malaysia, the comedy Blue Hawaii was promoted with an additional single featuring the song “No More”. On the flip side was the ballad recorded in Nashville, “Sentimental Me”.

“ As for the film itself, the key element was the determination of Colonel Parker and producer Hal Wallis to make the kind of film that Elvis’ audience would undoubtedly have preferred: musical entertainment rather than serious drama ,” noted the authors of Elvis The Music. “ That perception was only reinforced by the commercial (or, some would say, artistic) failures of Elvis’ last two films for 20th Century Fox – Flaming Star and Wild In The Country, both of which offered him serious, dramatic roles .”

The comedy “Blue Hawaii” hit theaters across the United States the day before Thanksgiving, on Wednesday, November 22, 1961. Several weeks earlier, however, the film had already been shown in Hawaii. A ceremonial, triple premiere took place on November 8 and 10 in three local cinemas – King, Palace and Waialae Drive-in. A pre-premiere screening, attended by local journalists, among others, took place in Honolulu, at the Queen Theatre.

“Of all the films made since World War II, none has been a greater success than ‘Blue Hawaii.’ The film, starring Elvis Presley, will have its world premiere here next Wednesday ,” wrote AA Smyser in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. “ The widescreen, color film faithfully and attractively captures the islands and presents them as modern Hawaii rather than Bali Hai, Tahiti or some other World War II battlefield .” Which, in the author’s opinion, could have greatly increased tourism in the region…

Writing about Presley himself, Smyser pointed out that “he sings in the film in a subdued manner, which will appeal even to older people who have so far shown dislike to him .” At the same time, citing the words of Hal Wallis, he emphasized that ” audience tests have shown that the above change did not harm him one bit with his younger fans .”

Birch Storm of The Honolulu Adversier also spoke in a similar tone, beginning his review with the following statement: ” What can I tell you? ‘Blue Hawaii’ will do more for the Islands this year than HVB, the State Commission, Dole Corp. and the macadamia nut division of Honokaa Sugar Co. combined. And best of all, it won’t hurt Elvis either! “

Other reviewers, however, were not as enthusiastic in their statements (although the reviews were generally quite positive). Howard Thompson of The New York Times, in an article published on February 22, 1962, wrote, among other things, that ” for the lone male viewer who had managed to crawl out of his snow-covered coat yesterday, watching Elvis chased along sandy beaches and green lawns dotted with palm trees by a group of pretty girls must have been remarkably painless .”

He went on to say that ” Visually, this dazzlingly colorful, enjoyable but also dull and bland film is probably the most beautiful postcard in the history of Honolulu and pineapples. In that order, more or less. Just watching the entire cast revel in the sunny vistas of the above landscapes is enough to make anyone who sees it leave home, throw their surfboard into the Hudson River, and sail away toward Waiktonia .”

In his review, Thompson also noted Presley’s songwriting. And, surprisingly, he was quite favorable about it. ” Presley also provides a few of the songs and his own rhythmic moves, as planned ,” he wrote. ” In all, I counted fourteen songs, about half of which featured ukulele and exotic, gyrating dancers. One of them, ‘Beach Boy Blues,’ is really cool, and Presley does it really well. I mean it .”

Variety magazine did not refrain from making “postcard comparisons”, reading that “Hal Kanter’s light script based on Allan Weiss’s story serves as a modest but comfortable foundation on which Wallis and his team have erected this beautiful postcard production filled with typical South Seas musical hula ballo… Under the good direction of Norman Taurog, Presley essentially plays himself here, and it is a role that will surely delight his die-hard fans .”

It is worth adding here that in 1962, the script written by Hal Kanter received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Awards in the category of “Best Written American Musical”.

The less than favorable reviews, as was usually the case with Elvis’ films, did not go hand in hand with ticket sales. Tickets were selling like hot cakes and long lines of fans were forming in front of the cinemas from the very first screening. Already in November 1961, the one hundred and two-minute film “Blue Hawaii” took second place in the Variety magazine’s Box Office ranking with a result of almost sixteen million tickets sold (according to the book “The Making of Blue Hawaii” it was exactly 15,131,091 units) and a box office receipt of almost ten and a half million dollars (exactly 10,440,453 dollars gross). Ultimately, Presley’s eighth film took eighth place in the ranking of the highest-grossing films of 1961 according to Variety.

The success of the comedy “Blue Hawaii” – both in the USA and far beyond its borders, was undeniable. The Paramount Pictures production not only brought crowds of the singer’s fans to the cinemas, thus ensuring considerable box office revenues (in time “Blue Hawaii” was called the biggest box office success in Presley’s entire filmography), but also set a new direction for his acting career. ” ‘Blue Hawaii’ returns Elvis Presley to his natural screen prototype ,” noted Variety magazine in an article from November 29, 1961. ” The free-form, romantic movie musical from which he had abandoned in favor of more dramatic endeavors in his last few films. It is in this type of film that the singing star seems to enjoy the greatest popularity and the huge crowd of his fans seems to prefer them .”

Unfortunately, over the years, Hollywood began to exploit the above formula too much. The repetition of banal scripts and increasingly weak songs caused not only the most ardent fans of Elvis to stop going to the cinemas and to give subsequent screenings a wide berth. More importantly… they also caused even Elvis himself, who had dreamed of becoming a serious actor since childhood, to irreversibly lose his former enthusiasm and desire to appear in subsequent productions.

Article written and provided by Mariusz Ogieglo, EP Promised Land (Poland) http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/

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