Blue Hawaii (1961)

One of my all time favorites.

Best movie ever!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

First time watching the king of rock and now I see the charm and Appel the generation before me adore this picture of color, music and fun

A FUN PRESLEY FLICK From the opening title scene of one of the Hawaiian Islands to the end of this movie was just a nice relaxing fun film. Elvis Presley, playing Chad Gates, was a little wooden with his acting but I heard from a friend that the director just wanted Presley to play himself. Joan Blackman, playing Maile Duval, was just a lot of fun and a good actress. The scene where the motorcycle cop catches up to her on a highway in Hawaii and starts to bawl her out for speeding, like a number of times before, and then changes his mind when, his friend, Maile, tells him that her boyfriend is coming home from the Army, is charming. The motorcycle cop gives Maile an escort (including siren) to the airport to pick up Chad Gates. And when Chad Gates tries to make Maile jealous when Chad is getting off the plane, by kissing the stewardess, that was funny and charming. Another charming moment is when Chad and Maile are making out on the beach and a little Hawaiian boy comes up to them and asks them if he can play the game and when Chad tells the little boy he's too young, the little boy is persistent and asks Chad if he can play if he can get a little girl to play the game with him. My girlfriend especially likes the "music box" scene where Chad Gates, played by Elvis Presley, sings "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" to Maile's grandmother. We own the DVD of Blue Hawaii and I use the scene selection to get to that scene and my girlfriend and I watch that chapter over and over again. Angela Landsbury, playing Chad Gate's mother is enjoyable and she's a good actress. Jennie Maxwell, playing Ellie Corbett was a thoroughly enjoyable over-sexed brat. My girlfriend always says, "What a brat!" when she sees Jennie Maxwell in this film. When Chad Gates gives Ellie Corbett a spanking on the beach at night, it's both funny and a little sexy, as far as I'm concerned. The spanking straightens Ellie out and she's more manageable the rest of the film. The scene where the teenage girls invade Chad Gate's room at night and drive him nuts and then, when the school teacher comes in and tries to get romantic with him, are hilarious! Since we purchased this DVD, my girlfriend and I have watched it a number of times and will watch it a lot more. We even took this DVD to the local hospital to let my girlfriend's mother watch it. My girlfriends mother just had major heart surgery and she has been to, and loves Hawaii and she's been to Graceland (Elvis' home). My girlfriend's mother, who is 82, was entranced by this movie and I'm sure it helped her recover from her operation. I'd rate this movie high because it's so enjoyable.

Elvis is a G.I. returning home to the Hawaiian islands after a 2 year stint in the service, but remains a kid at heart who doesn't want to grow up. His parents would love him to work a sensible job at his father's pineapple business (!) but all Presley wants to do is have a good time, so he becomes a tour guide (ho-hum). G.I. BLUES was fun and, when we consider all Presley's films in production order, it worked well as a romantic comedy on its own. But BLUE HAWAII was really the film that would take Elvis into a silly direction for most of his future movies in the '60s. He doesn't seem as interested as he was in previous roles, and now we also get a heaping helping of corny twangy throwaway Hawaiian songs from "the King", with embarrassing titles like "Ito Eats". One saving grace music-wise is his featured classic tune "Can't Help Falling in Love", but unfortunately it's an abbreviated version and is sung to an old lady. Angela Lansbury puts in a good effort as Presley's flighty mom, but it doesn't help matters any. I do, in fact, enjoy some of Elvis' later goofy 1960s fun flicks for what they are, but this one was just too standard and aimless. ** out of ****

Out of the 3 films Elvis made which were set in Hawaii, this is far and away the best and ranks IMHO in the top 5 of all his films, second best in the 1960s behind only "Viva Las Vegas" which had the advantage of a better co-star. This film is a joy to watch, with lovely on-location photography and some of Elvis' better songs including his classic "Can't Help Falling in Love".The story is a sparse affair concerning Chad, a returned G.I. who wants to make his own way in life but whose overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury, great as usual) wants only to hear of him working in the family's pineapple business. Chad figures out a way to get a job with a tourist agency taking advantage of his knowledge of the islands, but a crisis involving one of his underage charges threatens to cut his new career short.The film itself is better than the average Elvis film, not so much because of any redeeming themes or ideas (i.e. "King Creole") but moreso because the script gives the characters witty dialog and the narrative exposition is just heavy enough to keep the audience interested without becoming absurdly dramatic. For example one line that always gets a laugh from an audience is when Chad is trying to convince the schoolteacher that he will be a good tour guide, and she asks him "Mr Gates, are you sure you can handle a teacher and 4 teenage girls?". Just the line itself gets a laugh. This movie has a lot of humor that works very well, it's not like you're sitting there saying "oh look at what Elvis is doing"; a lot of the comedy are situations that would be funny with any decent comedian. Here, as in just a few of his later films like "Follow that Dream", Elvis gets to show he has real ability and good timing for comedy.The narrative structure itself is fairly effective in terms of drawing the audience in -- always a tough job with a story that has so little action and drama. First we're presented with a fairly standard parents vs. kid dramatic story as described above, and then when we meet the tourists there is another important character, the teenage tease Ellie Corbett. She's a rich kid's daughter who feels unloved and is a bit of a JD if you know what I mean. She doesn't want to go see the pineapple farm, she doesn't want to learn to surf, and she doesn't want to attend a hookie-lau. The audience perhaps identifies with her in some sense, and the elements in the audience that want to resist the urge to enjoy this Hawaiian treat are overcome by way of Ms. Corbett's objections being gradually over-ruled. Also she represents a key in the narrative for Chad -- although she initially creates a romantic confusion between Chad and his girlfriend, eventually it's Chad's ability to reach out to her that proves his maturity and his ability at his job. This takes his character beyond the parent vs. child dichotomy and into the world of maturity, where we leave him.