"G.I. Blues" was the first film Elvis Presley made after his release from the army in 1960, and, appropriately, has an army theme. Elvis here plays Specialist Tulsa McLean, a tank crewman serving with the U.S. Army in West Germany. In some ways this film looks forward to the sort of musical comedies which Elvis was to make later in the sixties. Many of these had an exotic setting and seemed to function as travelogues as well as musicals. What Elvis was later to do for Hawaii in "Blue Hawaii", for Mexico in "Fun in Acapulco" and for Nevada in "Viva Las Vegas!" he does here for Germany. In 1960 Americans were no doubt used to films about Nazi Germany, but the country we see here is not the defeated enemy of fifteen years earlier but America's new democratic ally, shown as an idealised land of old timbered houses, romantic vistas of the Rhine, foaming mugs of lager and pretty Frauleins in dirndl skirts. No doubt the German Tourist Board was suitably grateful.
Like most characters played by Elvis, Tulsa is a keen singer, and his great ambition is to run his own nightclub when he leaves the army. In order to obtain some of the money needed for this venture, he accepts a bet that he can spend the night with a local nightclub dancer named Lili. Lili has a reputation for being "hard to get", but Tulsa, like most characters played by Elvis, turns out to be irresistible to women, and it is not long before romance starts to blossom. There are also subplots about romances involving two of Tulsa's buddies, one (Cookie) with Lili's Italian flatmate Tina and another (Rick) with a local girl named Marla. Rather unusually for a light-hearted musical comedy from this period, Marla is an unmarried mother; when Production Code Hollywood dealt with the subject of unmarried motherhood it generally did so in the context of some deeply serious, moralising movie.
"G.I. Blues" was a success at the box office, but Presley' s film career seemed to be going in a different direction when he followed it up with two more serious films, "Flaming Star" and "Wild in the Country", in both of which he concentrated more on acting and less on music. Neither, however, was as successful at the box office as "G.I. Blues", which in many ways serves as a template for the "pretty girls and pretty scenery" type of musical comedies which were to provide Elvis with his comfort zone during the rest of his cinema career from "Blue Hawaii" onwards. The main difference is that "G.I. Blues", musically speaking, relies rather more on rock music and rather less on than the easy-listening style than do the likes of "Blue Hawaii" and "Frankie and Johnny". (The film's best-known number, however, is "Wooden Heart", derived from a German folksong). Elvis's leading lady here, the glamorous, leggy Juliet Prowse, makes more of an impact than do some of her rather anonymous successors, and her role as a nightclub dancer gives her a chance to show off her own dancing skills.
Interestingly this is one of the few films to play games with the normal convention that, except when making cameo appearances as "themselves", film stars are not referred to in the films in which they appear. While performing in a bar Tulsa discovers a record called "Blue Suede Shoes", sung by one Elvis Presley, on the jukebox. I wonder who he was. Other examples of this sort of game include "His Girl Friday", in which Cary Grant makes a quip about his co-star Ralph Bellamy, and "Ocean's Twelve" in which one character's physical resemblance to Julia Roberts is an important plot point. Roberts, of course, plays the character herself.
The banal plot, underdeveloped characterisation and lack of any great acting performances mean that "G.I. Blues" is unlikely ever to be regarded as a classic of the cinema. As with most Elvis films, the interest lies more in the music than in the characters or storyline. At least the film has more heart and spirit than a number of later Presley movies, such as "Frankie and Johnny" and "Paradise Hawaiian Style", and the star himself is more animated and less wooden than he was to be in some of those offerings. And Prowse is always worth watching, especially while dancing. 5/10
A goof. The German for "Fritz loves Emma" is not, as the scriptwriter obviously believed, "Fritz liebe Emma" but "Fritz liebt Emma". After me, class- Ich liebe, du liebst, er liebt.....
Like most characters played by Elvis, Tulsa is a keen singer, and his great ambition is to run his own nightclub when he leaves the army. In order to obtain some of the money needed for this venture, he accepts a bet that he can spend the night with a local nightclub dancer named Lili. Lili has a reputation for being "hard to get", but Tulsa, like most characters played by Elvis, turns out to be irresistible to women, and it is not long before romance starts to blossom. There are also subplots about romances involving two of Tulsa's buddies, one (Cookie) with Lili's Italian flatmate Tina and another (Rick) with a local girl named Marla. Rather unusually for a light-hearted musical comedy from this period, Marla is an unmarried mother; when Production Code Hollywood dealt with the subject of unmarried motherhood it generally did so in the context of some deeply serious, moralising movie.
"G.I. Blues" was a success at the box office, but Presley' s film career seemed to be going in a different direction when he followed it up with two more serious films, "Flaming Star" and "Wild in the Country", in both of which he concentrated more on acting and less on music. Neither, however, was as successful at the box office as "G.I. Blues", which in many ways serves as a template for the "pretty girls and pretty scenery" type of musical comedies which were to provide Elvis with his comfort zone during the rest of his cinema career from "Blue Hawaii" onwards. The main difference is that "G.I. Blues", musically speaking, relies rather more on rock music and rather less on than the easy-listening style than do the likes of "Blue Hawaii" and "Frankie and Johnny". (The film's best-known number, however, is "Wooden Heart", derived from a German folksong). Elvis's leading lady here, the glamorous, leggy Juliet Prowse, makes more of an impact than do some of her rather anonymous successors, and her role as a nightclub dancer gives her a chance to show off her own dancing skills.
Interestingly this is one of the few films to play games with the normal convention that, except when making cameo appearances as "themselves", film stars are not referred to in the films in which they appear. While performing in a bar Tulsa discovers a record called "Blue Suede Shoes", sung by one Elvis Presley, on the jukebox. I wonder who he was. Other examples of this sort of game include "His Girl Friday", in which Cary Grant makes a quip about his co-star Ralph Bellamy, and "Ocean's Twelve" in which one character's physical resemblance to Julia Roberts is an important plot point. Roberts, of course, plays the character herself.
The banal plot, underdeveloped characterisation and lack of any great acting performances mean that "G.I. Blues" is unlikely ever to be regarded as a classic of the cinema. As with most Elvis films, the interest lies more in the music than in the characters or storyline. At least the film has more heart and spirit than a number of later Presley movies, such as "Frankie and Johnny" and "Paradise Hawaiian Style", and the star himself is more animated and less wooden than he was to be in some of those offerings. And Prowse is always worth watching, especially while dancing. 5/10
A goof. The German for "Fritz loves Emma" is not, as the scriptwriter obviously believed, "Fritz liebe Emma" but "Fritz liebt Emma". After me, class- Ich liebe, du liebst, er liebt.....