Wed 16 Mar 2022
Movie Review: FUN IN ACAPULCO (1963).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[6] Comments
FUN IN ACAPULOCO. Paramount Pictures, 1963. Elvis Presley, Ursula Andress, Elsa Cárdenas, Paul Lukas, Larry Domasin, Alejandro Rey. Producer: Hal Wallis. Director: Richard Thorpe.
I realize that movies such as this one don’t turn up on this blog very often, but other than the fact that Elvis is in it, it marks a significant milestone for me. It’s the first movie I’ve seen in a theater in almost two and a half years. It was the matinee film shown at the New Beverly Theater in Hollywood last Sunday. The New Beverly is owned by Quentin Tarantino and specializes in retro films from 60s through the 80s, many of them prints coming from Tarantino’s own collection, such as this one. The poster below is the one on the sidewalk in front of the theater as you entered.
The movie was a big hit in its day, but to call it fluff from today’s perspective would be exaggerating by a factor of ten. The plot has something to do with Elvis’s character, the object of affection of two women in competition for his sole attention, and not much more than that — Elsa Cárdenas as a lady bullfighter, and Ursula Andress as the assistant social director at the resort hotel in Acapulco where Elvis has a combined job as a lifeguard and (of course) a singer.
I didn’t recognize any of the songs, but the teen-aged girls who came in hordes to see this movie in 1963 surely did. Besides Elvis, the other star attraction, the one aimed for the guys whose girls came to see him and were forced to come along, was of course Ursula Andress, this being the very next film she made following her bombshell appearance as Honey Ryder in the James Bond movie Dr. No. They made for an interesting couple on film. One can only wonder how they may have gotten along in real life.
I probably would never have sat down to watch this on TV, but it served its primary purpose very well. A movie in brilliant technicolor on a big screen with lots of people in it singing and dancing and just plain having a good time – and all that was only a bonus. It just felt great to be back in a movie theater again!
March 17th, 2022 at 6:25 am
No wonder you found this so enjoyable; Director Richard Thorpe spent years at MGM working on things like Quentin Durward,White Cargo,and Night Must Fall. Producer Hal Wallis was a near-legendary figure in Hollywood, with credits that include Casablanca,The Adventures of Robin Hood, and True Grit (1969.
March 17th, 2022 at 7:43 am
I beg to differ with you. Most Elvis movies (including this one) were full of crap songs that no one knew even then, let alone now. There were generally a couple of exceptions, but most Elvis movie songs sucked.
March 17th, 2022 at 9:09 am
Elvis may well have had a great movie career but he followed Colonel Parker’s advice and put out four insignificant films a year. He made a lot of money but his film career was shoe boxed.
Andress had a heavy Swedish accent and her voice was dubbed in DR. NO by Nikki van der Zyl. My own opinion is that she really never needed to speak in that role — I would have been happy if the entire film consisted of Honeychile Ryder emerging from the water in that white bikini over and over. She was the ultimate Bond girl.
March 17th, 2022 at 9:45 am
Jeff Meyerson, you are 100% correct and Colonel Parker was the culprit, Elvis the principal victim.
March 17th, 2022 at 7:54 pm
Have not seen this one.
But unexpectedly enjoyed
It Happened at the World’s Fair
Viva Las Vegas.
They are not great art.
But they are fun.
March 17th, 2022 at 8:09 pm
While no Elvis fan, and certainly even he was less than happy with his own films, they served the exact purpose they were supposed to, and a few early ones weren’t bad and Elvis okay in them (FLAMING ARROW, KID GALAHAD, LOVE ME TENDER, WILD IN THE COUNTRY). He had the potential to be better, not great, but better, if he had been given a chance.
There’s not much to an Elvis movie, mostly Elvis singing, gorgeous scenery, pretty girls (sometimes extremely pretty girls like Andress and Ann-Margret), and barely serviceable plots usually with some element of action and comedy. A few of them have one decent song (VIVA LAS VEGAS).
Girls went to them to swoon and guys hoped to pick up hints and maybe make out a little, plus Elvis, a big kid himself, usually had enough pull to get car races, helicopters, scuba diving, a fight or two, and bikinis in there for the poor guys in the audience dragged there by their date.
Back then movies were still inexpensive entertainment and these were mostly dating movies with no real ambition to be anything but that.
At least one Elvis movie FOLLOW THAT DREAM was based on a non mystery (PIONEER GO HOME) by mystery writer Richard Powell who among other things wrote the screenplay for MY GUN IS QUICK giving Elvis a tie to Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer