King Creole

This was an excellent Elvis movie. It is considered one of his best and also the movie character Elvis loved playing most in his acting career. I loved it and totally enjoyed it. It includes the hit song, Trouble. Very entertaining 👏!

Gift

Some say Elvis isn’t a good actor, but I think he’s very believable. I hadn’t ever seen this movie and think it’s one of his better ones. It has a good plot and good actors.

Just before Elvis went into the US Army, he did King Creole. This is NOT the usual fare...this actually had a good plot, with Walter Matthau, Vic Morrow, and Carolyn Jones in this black-and-white film set in New Orleans. Elvis is a teenager (bad at school) who gets tangled up in grownup crime. Lotsa good music, too!!

What spicy characters and writing. Some of the best acting and singing I have now become a fan of Elvis. this is a movie that people need to know about. Its not Hawaiian tshirts for sure!

Not the typical Elvis movie. Full of stars.

I wasn't much of an Elvis fan until I saw the 2022 movie, which I preordered from Amazon and saw several times in the theatre. I heard songs I'd never heard before. After seeing the brief scene of him singing Crawfish at home, I googled it and found out it was from King Creole. So I bought the movie. I loved it. People can say what they want about his acting, and I haven't seen most of his movies, but so far, in my opinion, his acting wasn't always as bad as it's been made out to be.

neato for an oldie

Before the rot set in, Elvis did a few decent flims that had good enough plots and acting, along with songs that were a decent standard . That was before Col Tom Parker decided to churn films out in about six weeks with no plot, fourteen songs usually crammed in,involving highly choreographed 'fights' with jealous boyfriends/local ne'er do wells where Elvis 'gets the girl' and all is well till the next debacle. However these early films had a lot more going for them and the songs are a lot better at this point. King Creole is vintage Elvis,and worth a look. In b/w. . . Be careful after Blue Hawaii (in my opinion,there are occasional better films along the way but most are poor after that.

King Creole is directed by Michael Curtiz and adapted to screenplay by Herbert Baker and Michael V. Gazzo from the novel A Stone for Danny Fisher written by Harold Robbins. It stars Elvis Presley, Carolyn Jones, Walter Matthau, Dolores Hart, Dean Jagger, Vic Morrow, Paul Stewart and Jan Shepard. Music is scored by Walter Scharf and cinematography by Russell Harlan. Plot finds Presley as Danny Fisher, a high school student struggling at school who falls in with the wrong crowd just as family matters of the heart start to take a hold.He said anybody that disagreed with you got a punch in the mouth. Is that what I brought you up to do, to fight?The last film Presley made before going off to do his service in the army, King Creole is his best film. It's one of only a small handful that showed the star actually had some acting ability, here he gets a top director to work under and a very tidy cast put along side him for him to respond too. Presley immediately warmed to Curtiz (Casablanca/Mildred Pierce), wilfully doing as he was told by the wily old director, rewarding the film fan with a performance of some merit. Presley would often say it was his personal favourite of his own films, and it's not hard to see why. Though packed with musical numbers, many of them belters as well, the film always stays dramatic, in fact the tunes form part of the narrative, they are not frothy interludes slotted in purely for fan appeasement.Everything he touches turns to drink.It's not unreasonable to expect King Creole to be a fun movie, the kind where Elvis flies a plane, speeds around on power boats, or saves the word during a treasure hunt, because the poster art and DVD covers lend you to think that. Honestly, one shows the King with guitar wrapped around him, hips bent and a huge smile on his face, the other has the same Elvis pose but along side him is a smiling beauty bedecked in a banana patterned dress! I mean really, would you think this film is shot in moody black and white, features murders, theft, family upheaval, drunks, knife fights, wasted life and all round dirty tricks? That the King is snarly, aggressive and channelling Jim Stark from Rebel Without a Cause? Because all these things reside within this potent and most agreeable Elvis picture.Now you know. That's how you get into it.With the drama relocated from the New York of the novel to Bourbon Street New Orleans, and Danny Fisher changed from a boxer to a singer, atmosphere needed to be tight to the emotionally battered story. And it is, very much so, with Harlan (Ramrod/Riot in Cell Block 11) doing a great job of making The Big Easy come off as The Big Seedy. This is a world of back alleys where hoodlum youths dwell and of wet tinged streets barely lit by gas lamps, many of the night scenes shot here are worthy of film noir status, with a rain sodden mugging sequence truly top of the line. Conversely Curtiz also paints a bustling Orleans picture, with song clubs and street sellers proving to be the heartbeat of the city. It's a twin viewpoint of Orleans that matches other duality themes that drive the narrative forward, because Danny is caught between two girls and two night club owners.Cast are very good across the board, with Matthau menacing, Morrow weasel like, Jagger and Jones sad and pitiful, Stewart elegantly honest and Hart doing a neat line in confused love. Stand out tunes include the title song, "Hard Headed Woman", "Trouble", "Steadfast Loyal and True", "Lover Doll" and the quite beautiful "As Long As I Have You". It's not perfect, serious crime goes unpunished, the main motive driving on Matthau's club boss is rather weak and the two love interest girls are written lazily as love sick puppies. Yet this is still a cracker of a movie, where Presley bristles with magnetism and emotional conflict and Curtiz and Harlan rack up the requisite amount of impressive atmospheric visuals. 9/10

Widely regarded as Elvis' best acting role, it was great to find this movie on DVD at such a reasonable price on Amazon to add to my collection.

Perfect condition, excellent price. The film is one of Elvis's best

This is one of Elvis' best films. Along with Jailhouse Rock it shows what a talented actor he was. It's just a shame he never got to do more films like this. A classic.