Viva Las Vegas (1964)

Part of the May Series Psychotronic Cinema, or “This movie’s a bit strange, isn’t it?”, presented by The Cinema Society of Kingston and hosted by writer/collector Barry Yuen. You can view the poster exhibit, Your Guide to Psychotronic Cinema in our upper lobby.

From series host, Barry Yuen: Rock ‘n’ Roll Movies, especially those from the 50’s and 60’s, fall under the Psychotronic banner, and no one made more rock’n’roll movies than Elvis Presley.  Elvis movies were often plot-heavy, but they existed solely as a showcase for Elvis to sing a bunch of songs  No matter what character Elvis was  playing (a race car driver, a helicopter pilot, a private in the army or a shrimp fisherman) the writers would find some excuse to put him in a nightclub setting or other public venue where out of nowhere he would sing and knock the crowd dead. 

VIVA LAS VEGAS is considered to be one of the best Elvis movies, in part due with the chemistry between him and Ann-Margret, along with better direction than usual.  Very often Elvis was given mediocre scripts and pedestrian directors who just wanted to get the movie shot as quickly as possible.