Loving You (Elvis Presley)

(Amazon UK link)

While we did, of course, know of Elvis Presley as a famous American singer, I don’t think I had realised that he was also quite a talented actor. I probably wouldn’t have come across the film ‘Loving You’, had it not been offered as a freebie in a UK newspaper many years ago. A relative acquired it, and passed it on to us. It’s taken us more than a decade to get around to watching it, but we finally did so yesterday evening.

The film was made in 1957, when Elvis would have been in his early twenties. He stars in this film as Deke Rivers, a young man who was orphaned young and grew up in a children’s home. He’s finally managed to secure a job in a delivery company, and wants to keep it. He’s somewhat shy, but is persuaded to sing in a small country show, and it’s clear that he has a lot of talent.  

Glenda (Lizabeth Scott) is the other main character: she’s an attractive but tough-minded woman who works as a press agent for a politician. When she hears Deke singing, she decides to work for her ex-husband Tex (Wendell Corey) who runs a band, if he will include Deke as an extra member.

Inevitably there are a lot of Elvis songs in this film, but it’s not a typical musical as the songs only happen when the band are on stage. Nobody breaks into song and dance at other times. Well, other than when Deke is persuaded to sing in a restaurant. There’s a low-key love interest, as the girl singer in the band becomes close to Deke, and there’s also a lot of romantic tension between Glenda and Tex.

But there’s a great deal more than that. Glenda is quite manipulative, often at the expense of Deke’s happiness; she persuades people to behave in specific ways so as to gather extra publicity. And she pretends to be a lot more interested in him as a man than she really is. 

Deke is a well-rounded character - we were very impressed with Elvis Presley’s acting - whom we could quite believe in. He’s in a world he knows little about, surrounded by people who insist they have his best interests at heart. He is lonely, longing for a real friend, and isn’t entirely sure who to trust. Nor does he know whether he wants stardom, when he was happy being a small part of a band. 

I understand that the storyline somewhat mirrored Elvis’s own journey into becoming a musical legend, although he was not an orphan, and was close to his parents as a young adult. But he was, apparently, quite shy as a teenager; perhaps that’s why his character seems so authentic. 

There are some deeper themes touched upon lightly, which I thought were well handled in this film. In particular, a passionate plea is made for understanding by the older generation who considered rock and roll to be disgraceful, with a well-crafted argument that is quite persuasive. 

There’s a bit of violence in the film, involving some fist fights as well as some general public rioting; but nothing gory. There are some quite passionate kisses too, and implications about nights spent together, but nothing explicit is shown. There’s some minor bad language, but nothing too shocking.  This is probably why it’s rated U although the storyline wouldn’t be of the slightest interest to children. 

Neither of us is a huge fan of Elvis music, though we don't dislike it. From the perspective of 2024 it feels nostalgically old-fashioned and quite tame by contrast with some of today’s trends in music. We were surprised at how much we liked this film. 

Recommended. 

You can find more information about this film, and see a brief trailer, here at the IMDb site: Loving You.

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews