Following Elvis's marriage to Priscilla in May 1967 he was back in Hollywood's
MGM Studios in June working on his 26th feature film, Speedway.
This movie provided Elvis with the role of a race car driver for the third time
in his screen career, following Viva Las Vegas and Spinout.
Co-starring with Elvis was his old friend Nancy Sinatra, who was certainly not
the most accomplished actress. She would make very few film appearances in her
career. Providing male support was Bill Bixby (fresh from Elvis's previous film,
Clambake) as Elvis's unscrupulous business manager, and Gale Gordon
as an overwrought Inland Revenue operative. Also featured, as one of Elvis's race
car crew, was an actor with the most unlikely name of Poncie Ponce - he had appeared
as a regular years before in the TV detective series Hawaiian Eye. In a
different slant to the two previous race car movies, several professional drivers
such as Cale Yarborough and Tiny Lund took part in the action and were given billing
over the credits. The racing sequences in the film made for quite exciting viewing
but were overlong at times. Twenty-six films down the line and still working in
what were effectively juvenile productions, Elvis appeared pretty bored at times
and his acting had just a shade of amateur about it. 1967 was fortunately the
same year that he moved on to some screen challenges and he was to leave the totally
lightweight roles behind him.
The music
recorded for the soundtrack was unremarkable. The LP release for the film was
to be the last full soundtrack release from Elvis's scripted movies, but of course
it featured - as so many had - a selection of 'bonus' songs alongside those actually
featured in the film. In an unusual move, the LP also featured the song Your
Groovy Self, performed solely by Nancy Sinatra - the first such occasion on
an Elvis soundtrack album. Nancy Sinatra also performed a duet with Elvis on There
Ain't Nothing Like a Song. The single release from the film coupled Your
Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby with Let Yourself Go. This failed to set
the charts on fire but proved a moderate hit. Elvis would feature Let Yourself
Go in his NBC TV Special in 1968, but the sequence was cut from the final
broadcast version. Writers Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett composed a song called
Five Sleepy Heads, based on Brahms' Lullaby, for the movie. Although
it made it on to the album, the song was cut from the film. (Unconfirmed) reports
have suggested, however, that the song features in prints of the film in some
other countries. The song He's Your Uncle Not Your Dad is one of those
embarrassing songs that even upon the film's release in 1968 seemed way out of
date then. From this point on, Elvis's few remaining scripted films would feature
considerably less songs. The time was absolutely right (if not in fact a shade
late) for such a decision to be made, and there was probably no-one more pleased
with the outcome than Elvis himself.
This
information was produced by the Elvis Presley Film Society in September 2003 |