Frankie and Johnny (1966)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Admirable film.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

The acting in this movie is really good.

Even though they have a lousy reputation I've generally been a fan of Elvis Presley films. Many of them provide breezy, painless fun with some good songs thrown in. Unfortunately, there's precious little entertainment in 'Frankie And Johnny' which is especially frustrating as a lot of the elements are there for a satisfying film such as a workable plot, good supporting cast and colourful sets.But this feels boring and lifeless from the word go. Elvis deserves some of the blame as - apart from 'The Trouble With Girls' - I can't recall him giving such a dull performance.But the real culprit is Frederick De Cordova who directs the film so lifelessly and lazily that the film never has a chance.Take for example the finale where it's been set up by a supporting character that in their staged musical number Frankie will shoot Johnnie with a real bullet instead of a blank. She does shoot him and appears to have killed him but through a stroke of remarkable luck he is unharmed. All this and the culprit is forgotten 15 seconds later for the upbeat closing musical number!Even amongst his mid to late 1960s work, you can do much better if you're searching for an Elvis film to watch.

"Frankie and Johnny" is one in the long line of musicals which Elvis Presley churned out in the sixties. It has no connection with the Al Pacino/Michelle Pfeiffer film of the same name from 1991, but is instead fairly loosely based upon the well-known American folk-song. It is set some time in the late nineteenth century, probably around 1880 or 1890, although the exact date is never stated. Johnny and his girlfriend Frankie are performers on a Mississippi riverboat; Johnny is also a compulsive gambler, and as the boat has a casino on board he has plenty of opportunities to gamble. The film deals with the complications caused in their relationship by Johnny's gambling habit and Frankie's jealousy of his friendship with an attractive redhead named Nellie Bly. Johnny's interest in Nellie arises from the fact that a gypsy fortune-teller has informed him that a red-haired woman will bring him luck, but the jealous Frankie suspects that their relationship goes much deeper.One of the problems of casting a rock star in a Victorian period drama is that rock didn't actually exist in the Victorian era. The makers of this film are not really all that concerned with period accuracy- some of the music we hear sounds suspiciously like jazz, which didn't really exist in the 1880s, and even the song "Frankie and Johnny" itself was not published in its modern form until the 1920s. Somebody, however, obviously realised that rock-and-roll would be anachronistic, so the star gets to sing a series of bland, totally forgettable easy-listening numbers.Elvis was always fairly laid-back as an actor, but in this film he doesn't seem to make much effort as a singer either, being content just to stroll his way through the film. The rest of the cast are no better; in his film career Elvis played opposite some pretty obscure leading ladies, but Donna Douglas is one of the least memorable of the bunch. I was not surprised to discover that this was the last film she made in a brief cinema career. About the complicated and often far-fetched plot, the less said the better. Most Elvis Presley films these days are unlikely to appeal to anyone other than his many devoted admirers, but I suspect that even they will find themselves feeling a bit short-changed by this one. 4/10

Listless, abysmal Elvis Presley outing, loosely based on a 19th century French folk song, concerns a riverboat entertainer (and luckless gambling addict) in New Orleans told by a gypsy soothsayer that his luck will change once he dumps his blonde steady for a redhead. Filmed on the cheap, with Presley faking his way through. Two good EP songs, "Please Don't Stop Loving Me" and "Shout It Out", though the latter number is stolen from the star by a woozy ho-daddy guitarist in the bottom left of the screen. Donna Douglas, Nancy Kovack, and Sue Ane Langdon are a fun femme trio, but Harry Morgan is a colorless sidekick and Elvis just looks beat. *1/2 from ****

"Frankie and Johnny" is undoubtedly one of, if not THE, worst of Elvis Presley's films. Mind you, none of Elvis' films were Academy Award material, but this film looked as if it were a hokey made-for-TV movie rather than a theatrical release. Donna Douglas' singing voice is obviously dubbed as is Harry Morgan's. Presley seems out of place in a cast made up primarily of 1960s supporting television actors. Even the director of the film, Frederick de Cordova, had his roots in TV working with George Burns and Johnny Carson - hardly credential enough to be directing a movie musical at a time when the movie musical was all but dead anyway.I walked away from the movie feeling as if I had wasted my time.