The Trouble With Girls

(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1969)

1968 proved to be an extremely busy year for Elvis's work calendar. In the spring he had worked on MGM's Live a Little, Love a Little and spent time in June at L.A.'s Burbank Studios recording his historic NBC TV Special. From July he was on location in Arizona shooting the western Charro!, with time spent back in Hollywood for interior shots. October saw him return to MGM Studios for what would be his 30"' film and penultimate acting role - The Trouble With Girls. The film was based on the novel Chautauqua by Day Keene and Dwight Babcock and had retained the novel's title during production. However, a late decision was made to change the title. On all the promotional literature, and even on the theatrical trailer, the film has a sub-title included - (And How to Get into It), but this does not appear on prints of the actual feature film. Strange. Elvis's main female co-stars were Marlyn Mason and Sheree North. The latter actress spoke years later of how very surprised she was at Elvis's terrible insecurities as an actor. She felt that he undervalued his own standing as a screen actor. Veteran actors from the horror genre - Vincent Price and John Carradine - featured in cameo roles in the film, although they had no direct scenes with Elvis. The 1927-set period was very effectively captured, giving some flavour of what these carnival-like, travelling 'Education and Entertainment' shows brought to small-town American communities.

Throughout most of the film Elvis was dressed in a very stylish white suit and hat, looking every inch the unflappable manager he was portraying. It was quite a change of pace to witness him in such a role, caught up in a local murder as part of the plot. He was very at ease in this role, belying any of the aforementioned insecurities.

Music was not a strong point of the story, but Elvis did have the opportunity to perform the gospel favourite Swing Down Sweet Chariot and a classy, though very short, ballad entitled Almost. Something of a feature, in the effective use of different camera angles, was the stage sequence featuring the Mac Davis-Billy Strange penned song Clean Up Your Own Back Yard. This was released in fact as a single along with The Fair's Moving On (from the January 1969 Memphis sessions) and reached the no.21 position in the U.K. charts, and a high of no.35 Stateside.

The Trouble With Girls did not enjoy any large-scale promotion upon release. In the U.S. it went out as a 104 minute version. When it finally arrived in British cinemas at the close of 1969, it ran as a 'B' feature to an obscure fantasy film and was reduced to a staggering 79 minutes running time. By removing lengthy scenes from the 'proper' version of the film, this served to confuse the entire storyline. The film virtually disappeared. The only saving grace was that the eventual video release in the U.K. restored all the missing scenes, but this was rather late in the game.

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