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Live A Little, Love A Little

(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968)

 

Having completed work on MGM's comedy western Stay Away, Joe by the close of 1967, Elvis was back at Metro Studios in March 1968 to begin production on what was undoubtedly his most bizarre comedy vehicle - Live a Little, Love a Little. As a freewheeling fashion photographer secretly holding down two prestigious jobs at one time, Elvis undertook the role with enough conviction, although this was a comedic level quite removed from previous form. There was certainly more emphasis on the characterisations than on the music content, which was fairly incidental. The film was based on the novel Kiss My Firm But Pliant Lips by Dan Greenburg, who also co-wrote the screenplay. The veteran Norman Taurog served as director for his final Elvis movie - this being the 9th occasion he had directed an Elvis feature film. In the lead female role as the zany Bernice was Michelle Carey. She also played roles in the westerns El Dorado (1967) with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, and Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) with Frank Sinatra. Dick Sargent, from TV's Bewitched, also featured as Elvis's love rival. Onetime peer of Bing Crosby, crooner Rudy Vallee appeared as one of Elvis's two bosses in the film - the other boss being played by Don Porter, as a Hugh Hefner-like character who runs a glamour magazine empire. Elvis's father Vernon appeared in one brief scene in a non-speaking part. Vernon had of course featured in a crowd scene, along with Elvis's mother Gladys, at the finale of Loving You over ten years earlier. In a quite brutal fight sequence Elvis engaged in battle with both Red and Sonny West - emerging as the victor naturally. There's a kind of irony there when you consider that the West cousins were in fact both bodyguards to Elvis in real life.

Only four songs featured on the film soundtrack, those being Wonderful World, Almost in Love, A Little Less Conversation and Edge of Reality. A single release was issued coupling A Little Less Conversation with Almost in Love but chart-wise the record bombed. Thirty-four years later, in 2002, a re-mix of A Little Less Conversation shot to the no.1 spot in many different countries including topping the U.K. charts for five consecutive weeks. The song was composed by Mac Davis and Billy Strange and this hugely-successful event must have registered as very belated satisfaction.

Live a Little, Love a Little was released in November 1968 in the U.S. but was denied a cinema release in the U.K. - the first such occasion for an Elvis movie. The first U.K. television screening was aired by the BBC in 1986 - eighteen years after its production.

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