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Officially recognised by Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc

 

 Blue Hawaii
(Paramount, 1961)

In March 1961 Elvis travelled to Hawaii to perform a benefit concert in aid of the USS Arizona Memorial Fund at the Bloch Arena, Pearl Harbour. At that time a deal had been made between Elvis's management, producer Hal Wallis and Paramount Studios to go into production with Blue Hawaii - Elvis's eighth movie, so he remained in the islands and cast and crew were duly assembled. Supporting Elvis on this occasion were Angela Lansbury, playing Elvis's mother although she was in fact only ten years older than he was, Joan Blackman (who would co-star with Elvis again in Kid Galahad), Nancy Walters, John Archer and Roland Winters as Elvis's father. Roland Winters would appear once again with Elvis in his very next film - Follow That Dream.

Looking at Elvis's screen successes, Blue Hawaii was a massive hit and it has been stated on many occasions that this truly began the cycle of lightweight, song-filled musical excursions. With the benefit of hindsight it is fair to say that this is reasonably accurate, although Elvis's two films immediately following Blue Hawaii - those being Follow That Dream and Kid Galahad - were certainly not glamorous musical extravaganzas. Contracts for those productions were no doubt already in place so that would undoubtedly offer some explanation for this situation. From 1962 on, there was little drama evident in Elvis's films through until around 1968 when there was an obvious need for a different screen image.

The soundtrack for Blue Hawaii contained more songs than any other feature film (apart from the later concert documentaries) and the resulting 14-track album scored a huge chart success by massive sales around the world. It achieved the no.1 spot in both the U.S. and the U.K. A promotional single, coupling Can't Help Falling in Love with Rock a Hula Baby was lifted from the album and reached the no.1 spot in the U.K. and no.2 in the U.S. An additional song - Steppin' Out of Line - was actually recorded for the film but was cut from the final print and also cut from the album. It appeared on the next Studio album Pot Luck instead. The song Can't Help Falling in Love was to become the closing song at Elvis's live concerts for almost the entire period (eight years, from 1969 -1977) he returned to the stage show format. On his historic Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite show in January 1973, Elvis performed the song as his finale, which was expected of course, but rather interestingly he performed on stage - after the show was over and the audience had left - several additional songs for the U.S. airing of the show in April 1973 including four from the Blue Hawaii soundtrack. This of course was also filmed. The songs were Hawaiian Wedding Song, Ku-U-1-Po, No More and Blue Hawaii. He also sang Early Morning Rain, but this has no direct link with the others.

This information was produced by the Elvis Presley Film Society in December 2003
© 2003 Elvis Presley Film Society