Best Elvis Presley Movie: Speedway 1968

Boom-shaka-laka! It’s time to finally write a couple of lines on our website about one of the many films with the real Elvis Presley! Perhaps someone will ask: why didn’t we do this before? Well, I will answer with all honesty and directness: most of the films with Elvis are very mediocre – and this, in principle, is recognized and disputed by everyone only by ardent fans of the King. Of the thirty-odd films with Comrade Presley in the title role (and I watched a little more than two dozen), none of them seemed to me worthy of an article on the site. I had high hopes for Jailhouse Rock, but as a result, this film, which many consider to be one of the best in the King’s film career, personally seemed to me too monotonous and absolutely not lingering in my head. At the same time, Speedway was supposed to be just another musical comedy, of which Elvis has so many in his filmography, but suddenly he turned out to be perhaps the best at the moment. Yes, my opinion, of course, is subjective, but let me still write a few words in support of him.

First of all, let’s turn to my favorite source of facts – history. It just so happened that Speedway was the last in a long line of musical comedies in which Presley starred: the collections of these films were steadily falling, and the minds of Hollywood decided that Elvis needed to change his role. No one expected anything from the title film of this article, but it suddenly became a pleasant surprise, having collected $ 3 million at the box office: to find a movie with comrade Presley, who collected more, you need to roll back 10 films back to the 65th year. Why did this happen? Well, the Speedway used cars, Nancy Sinatra and, traditionally, Elvis Presley songs to lure people to the cinemas – and most of it worked.

Perhaps you should start with cars. Of course, Speedway as a NASCAR movie does not reach the level of Greased Lightning, but I think I won’t exaggerate much if I say that some of the most exciting moments of the film take us to Charlotte Speedway in North Carolina. In addition to the material specially shot for this film, the film also contains footage from the 1967 Charlotte 600 race – and it all works great. Fans of vintage stock car racing recordings will also surely be delighted with the appearance on the screen of seven real racers, including Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough, as well as the great and unique Richard Petty – these cameos worked then, and now, perhaps, work even better. And, of course, it’s always just nice to see the King of Rock and Roll driving the king of all cars in general and muscle cars in particular, because Elvis Presley’s car is a ’67 Dodge Charger. Do I need to say that Speedway turned out to be much better than the Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise?

Let’s move on to the songs. Yes, Jailhouse Rock definitely remains the best song that Elvis sang for his film, but the problem is that one song for the whole movie is not enough. Unlike Prison Rock, Speedway boasts a whole set of very good songs. Among them, critics most often mention the composition Let Yourself Go – and I can’t understate its merits. The blues motif with piano and wind instruments perfectly harmonizes with the first-class vocal work of the beloved king of rock and roll, but… Personally, I still prefer the slightly more active and rock’n’roll track There Ain’t Nothing Like A Song, which reminds me of the immortal Blue Suede Shoes with its message. And, of course, it is impossible not to mention the title track of the film, respectively called Speedway. I repeat: Individually, none of these songs will be able to break Jailhouse Rock, but the film puts them together – and we get, in general, a soundtrack that is one step above what I heard in Prison Rock. It is also worth noting that Static-X released a cover of the Speedway track in 2002, and when a song is covered 34 years after its release, it still speaks to the value of the composition in certain circles.

What didn’t work was Nancy Sinatra. Yes, she sings, but she’s not a very good actress – and this is especially evident against the background of an experienced and much more flexible actor Elvis. There’s not enough energy in her game, and the so-called chemistry with the King of Rock and Roll didn’t work out much either. If we compare with the Wild Angels released two years earlier, it can be noted that Nancy has a much bigger role in Speedway, which is why it turns out that if in a duet with Peter Fonda the lack of acting skills of Sinatra was not particularly noticeable, then in a duet with Elvis Presley, Nancy’s inept performance in the frame is sometimes annoying. On the other hand, it’s not as bad as it might seem – average, yes, but not bad. And if in the movie about the biker gang the role of Sinatra was extremely small and absolutely not memorable, then in the movie Speedway I at least remembered Nancy and her character.

Finishing my short story, I can’t help but note how much better Elvis looks on the screen in this film compared to the movie Picnic By the Sea, filmed just a year earlier. At a Picnic By the Sea, Presley looked extremely tortured and completely uninterested in his work, while at Speedway the King plays much more energetically, and in general looks noticeably more involved in the process. This energy benefits the silly plot: it is clearly visible when the actor keeps thoughts in his head a la “Good God, well, what nonsense I’m acting in,” and when he thinks “damn, what funny and funny nonsense” – and this mood is transmitted to the viewer for one or two. Well, it is impossible not to mention the acting of Bill Bixby, with whose character the King had a much more believable relationship than with the character of Nancy Sinatra. No one probably looks at the secondary characters when names like Presley and Sinatra are in the foreground, but Bixby plays first-class, wonderfully complementing the story of the film throughout the timing.

So yes, of the more than twenty films with Elvis Presley that I have watched at the moment, Speedway is definitely the best in my opinion, and I am ready to honestly and frankly recommend it to each of you for viewing – either so that you are convinced that I am right, or in order to try to challenge my opinion.