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Projecting a positive image
Officially recognised by Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc
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DOUBLE
TROUBLE (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1967) |
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| Given a European setting, Double Trouble, Elvis's twenty-third feature film, at least promised a different take on what was, by the time of its production in 1966, a run of basically indifferent musical adventures. Setting the story in London and then Belgium offered Elvis a form of `fish out of water' project. The only problem was that Elvis never left MGM's Hollywood Studios! Executives certainly got the casting right by importing such British actors as Norman Rossington, Yvonne Romain, John Williams and - plucked from obscurity to co-star with Elvis Presley - the then eighteen-year old Annette Day. Shot in the summer of 1966, Elvis turned in a professional performance, but this type of material was hardly challenging, and at times it appeared rather obvious. Interestingly, this film had a kind of 'caper/thriller' element to its structure, which again pointed to some form of departure from then recent productions. The screenplay was written by Jo Heims, based on a story by Marc Brandel. Jo Heims would later write screenplays on a couple of projects with Clint Eastwood as director, including Play Misty For Me [1971] - Eastwood's directorial debut. First-time producer Irwin Winkler (he co-produced with Judd Bernard) found the experience unusual on the production. Years later he made some comments about his time on the movie, which were included in the 1998 book Easy Riders,Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind. As a young, novice film producer he approached Col. Tom Parker and asked if he could meet with the film's director. Parker said: "You be in front of the Thalberg Building at eleven o'clock in the morning, your director will be there". Right on cue, a frail. elderly Norman Taurog appeared, getting out of his car with some difficulty. Taurog informed Winkler that he could hardly see anymore, and Winkler rounded off the tale by admitting to his amazement at these old gentlemen of Hollywood - basically in ill-health but still working. Taurog went completely blind just two years after this period, according to Winkler's story. Winkler's Hollywood career developed to the stage where he himself became a director - overseeing films like Night and the City (1992) where, among others, he would direct Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange. He also directed Sandra Bullock in the action thriller The Net (1995). By the time Double Trouble was released in 1967 - curiously, in the U.K. it was released after Paramount's Easy Come, Easy Go although it actually went into production before it - Elvis had been associated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios for ten years. MGM issued a statement congratulating Elvis on his success and his standing as a film star. He would star in several more productions for the Studio, right through until 1972. Music from
the film was released on a soundtrack album consisting of 8 songs from the actual
movie, plus several then-standard `Bonus' songs (as RCA termed their album fillers).
As a soundtrack album, it was rather weak. With songs like the mind-boggling Old
MacDonald (How did Elvis feel in the Studio recording that??) this was way
off the track of earlier, superior soundtracks such as G.I. Blues
and Blue Hawaii. The quality of the soundtrack was reflected in
its chart non-success - in the U.K. it achieved a high of no.34 whilst in the
U.S. it made no chart appearance. A single was lifted from the film for release
- the song Long Legged Girl(With the Short Dress On), but again had no
significant chart success. At a mere 1 minute 27 seconds, this was the shortest
single release ever put out by Elvis's record company - no doubt another factor
in the failure of the single to make any impact. |
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