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Movie Reviews
Women in Prison
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Jailhouse Rock (1957) |
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| Elvis, groovin to the Jailhouse Rock. |
I have to admit, I don't completely "get" Elvis. I mean, sure, I understand his important role in rock history as a popularizer of black rhythm and blues, and I appreciate his potential as a pretty-boy sex symbol. What I don't get is his continuing mystique. Actually, I feel the same way about James Dean and Marlon Brando, two other 1950s bad boys who strike me as ridiculous in retrospect. Again, I can see why they were popular then... what I can't see is why people still think they were something special. Well, I do have a theory -- one which isn't really very original, but I'll say it anyway. Elvis, Dean, and Brando are all time-capsule figures. Dean died young. Elvis got fat, fell out of sight, and then died still young. And Brando just got fat and fell out of sight. So instead of watching them grow up, all their fans have/had is the image of them in their youth and the meaning they had at that time. I actually have a second theory, which is sort of simpler. Basically, Elvis, Dean, and Brando are baby boomer heroes (even though Dean and Elvis were born in the 1930s and Brando in the 1920s); and the baby boomers are nothing if not self-indulgent and self-important.*FOOTNOTE Everything that ever happened to the baby boomers seems to them to be of historic proportions. Remember the constant bleating we got when baby boomer Bill Clinton was elected, all that Kennedyesque stuff about a torch being passed to a new generation? Well, it turns out Clinton was the same-old, same-old, except without the decency to keep his sexual peccadilloes and political corruption under wraps.
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| Hellraiser Vince and his super tractor. |
A lot of this movie rides on Elvis's sex appeal. The opening credits play out over a charcoal drawing of Elvis from behind, his butt nicely highlighted. At this point in his career, Elvis was young, slim, and as good looking as he was going to get. I can see how he might appeal to teenage girls. Elvis is also definitely a "bad boy" here. His first big entrance features him kicking up dust on some sort of souped-up tractor. In his next scene he's buying a round of drinks in a bar, and then getting into a barroom fight when a jealous husband arrives to break up his wife's advances on our hero... not that the man had much to worry about since the woman in the scene must have been in her 40s, which as we now know, is about three times older than what Elvis was looking for. Anyway, Elvis knocks the guy loopy and then finishes him off with another blow that kills him. Wow! Elvis kills a man with his bare hands. What a thrill it must have given Elvis when he first read the screenplay and saw that. I guess I should note that Elvis plays a character named Vince Everett, and I guess I should refer to the character as Vince since that is my usual custom... but, frankly, they might as well have called him Elvis given the plot that follows (yes, I'll explain).
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| "Tough woodchuck?" Did I mishear that? Or was that some sort of 1950s slang for young punk? |
Anyway, our hero gets sentenced to 1-10 years in prison for manslaughter. Vince gets the standard welcome from the warden, although this one is livened up with some particularly goofy dialogue. The warden says to him, "Tough woodchuck, huh? Well, that's what we're here for. To teach you hooligans. It says here you killed a man with your bare hands. We don't use hands here, we use guns. Oh, and I'll tell you another thing we use for cons who don't toe the mark... the whip. Understand me?" Vince manages to refrain from chuckling.
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| Elvis before the cheeseburgers took their toll. |
Following this bit of camp, Elvis... oops... Vince meets his cellmate, Hunk Houghton (Mickey Shaughnessy). Shaughnessy was definitely on the downslope of his career. He later starred in such classics as College Confidential (1960) and Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) after having had a role in From Here to Eternity (1953), an awful movie, but at least one with an A-list cast. Anyway, Houghton is a combination of prison stereotypes: at different times he takes on the role of hardened con, institutionalized has-been, mentor, and prison operator. The cast list is pretty thin, and I guess they couldn't afford to introduce a whole slew of characters at this point, so Houghton is it. Houghton explains to Vince that for three packs of cigarettes, he can get a decent haircut rather than a hatchet job, and Houghton offer to lend Vince the cigs in return for interest. Vince turns down the offer. So Vince ends up with the hatchet job, high and tight on the sides and longer on top -- it would actually be reasonably stylish circa 1995 -- and returns to the cell more willing to learn from Houghton. This scene has aged particularly badly since the haircut Vince gets doesn't look so bad, and frankly I think even kids these days are less obsessed with hair than kids in the 1950s and 1960s seem to have been. Anyway, we get a number of scenes showing Vince slowly adjusting to prison life, including his job shoveling coal. The purpose of the scene is to show Elvis shirtless, although his physique would hardly impress anyone nowadays. No rippling abs or bulging biceps on this boy.
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| Houghton shows Vince a few chords. |
The "plot" sorta kicks into gear when Houghton sings a song in order to calm the other inmates one evening. It turns out that Houghton was a country singer from way back when... before a dame and bank got him into trouble. Houghton teaches Vince about the music business and brags about making as much as $200 a week! Vince shows interest, and Houghton offers to teach him to play guitar and sing country. Houghton berates Vince's technique at first -- "you've got no rhythm in your bones," he says in what must have been an attempt at irony from the filmmakers -- but pretty soon Elvis is crooning like a hillbilly Perry Como.
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| Were the networks really that hard up for material? |
Things now get a little fuzzy. Somehow Houghton is tapped to organize a variety show to be broadcast from coast-to-coast. I know the networks had trouble filling airtime in the early days of TV, but I doubt they ever had to broadcast a prison talent show organized by a convict to fill time. Realistically, would such a program even have been let on the air? Anyway, Vince performs. He seems fine, although I'm guess that the Elvis fans in the audience must have been getting restless at the ballads and country harmonies that make up the musical numbers until Elvis finally breaks loose on "Treat Me Nice" 51 minutes into the picture... but I digress. The show is a big success, especially for Elvis who garners the vast majority of the fan mail. Houghton, though, conspires with the warden to keep the mail out of Vince's hands. Instead, he tells Vince he has potential and then offers him a partnership. After they both get out of the joint, they'll tour together and share the receipts 50-50. Vince hems and haws, but finally signs. Oh no! Has our hero signed away his future fortune? Well, stay tuned.
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| There probably wasn't a dry, um, eye in the house after this scene. |
Before Vince can get out and start his professional singing career, however, he runs afoul of the prison administration. Vince gets caught up in the middle of riot in the lunchroom, and instead of following Houghton to safety, he stops to slug a couple of guards. The punishment is whipping, with Elvis shirtless and strapped to an overhead pipe. One can only imagine the reaction this scene caused for teenage daughters of America at the time. Still, Vince survives this indignity more or less intact. Time passes and he is released with $54 to his name and a potential job offer courtesy of one of Houghton's contacts at Club La Florita... oh, and a bag of mail from Vince's TV appearance that the warden finally hands over.
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| Forays into pedophilia... Vince reads a letter from a teenage temptress. |
At first, Vince isn't convinced that he can make it in music. Then he reads one of the fan letters: "Dear Vince, I saw you on television today singing from the jail, and I thought you looked real cool. My name is Mary Jane Hamilton and I'm 15 with blue eyes and brown hair. My measurements are 33-25-36. Do you think I should reduce? Ha ha. If you ever come to Riverport, how about giving me a blast on the phone." I'm often surprised by what was allowed and what wasn't permissible in movies in the 1950s. If Elvis has kissed a black girl, it would have caused riots. But getting a steamy letter from a 15-year old would-be groupie was all in good fun... or something. Given Elvis' real-life borderline pedophilia, this segment is particular intriguing. Anyway, soon thereafter Vince rushes out to buy a used guitar and makes his way to the club.
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| Peggy and Vince check out the burlesque number on stage. |
What is Club La Florita? I'll be damned if I know. Some sort of vaudeville relic, with a raised stage behind the bar. Vince walks in on a burlesque number, which, as you can imagine isn't very risqué, although the we do see the performer dragging her dress behind her as she exits the stage. They also have what looks like a 5-piece band playing up there, which seems like overkill given how small the club seems to be.
Vince is sitting at the bar. It isn't clear whether he's drunk, although he's certainly surly enough that he just might be. A very pretty brunette walks in. She goes over the jukebox, peers inside, and scribbles down a bunch of numbers. She is Peggy Van Alden (Judy Tyler), a record company rep checking on the play figures for old-time crooner Mickey Alba. She then sits down next to Vince, who proceeds to eye her crudely. "Tell me what you see," she challenges him. He replies, "About 5'4", weight 115, pretty well stacked." "I'm glad you find me pleasing," she answers wryly. "I don't find you nothin'," he snaps. Ah yes, the famous Elvis charm. Vince proceeds to pester her about the record business... until the bar's owner shows up and then he ignores his female companion in order to harass the owner about the job. The owner has a job for Vince alright: bar boy. As in "go fetch a block of ice" bar boy. Vince wants to sing, however, and when the band on stage takes a break, he hops up there himself and launches into another ballad, "Young and Beautiful."
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| Vince leaps from the stage and confronts a heckler in the audience. |
Vince is not the immediate success you might expect. Indeed, most of the patrons ignore him, and one drunk guy keeps interrupting the song with a loud cackle. Finally, Vince has enough. He hops down from the stage and smashes his guitar on the guy's table before storming out. Teenage girls at the time might have considered this behavior "passionate" or "intense." Forty-four years later, we'd call it petulant. Surprisingly, Peg follows him out of the restaurant and offers him a ride. The tramp! In her car, she basically tells him that he's no good, and that he just sounds like everyone else. He'll repay her honest with a bad attitude for the rest of the movie. She offers to get him into a recording studio so he can hear himself. Now, none of this makes much sense, really. Peg's behavior is weird. I mean, as far as she knows he's just a horny psycho with little talent. Just as weird is that fact that no one seems to think much of Vince's music, even though the reason he's pursuing a music career in the first place is because he got a big sack of fan mail after his first TV appearance. What's up with that?
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| Vince sings it like he feels it as Peg looks on approvingly. |
Alright, so Peggy gets Vince into the studio. He sings "Don't Leave Me Now," to the general disinterest of the session musicians and producers (who paid for all those people?). They play the track back and he agrees that he sounds like "a million other singers." Peg recommends that he "sing it like [he] feels it." Vince puts aside the guitar he's be awkwardly strumming, and sings the song again with a little more soul. This time, the session musicians are bopping along to the beat and the engineers are watching with rapt attention. Suddenly, he has a record quality sound. Now, one of the tough parts of watching this movie is differentiating between Elvis when he is supposed to be bad and when he's supposed to be good. I guess the subtle inflections that differentiated his R&B-influenced country music from old-fashioned country music are harder to notice nowadays -- at least for me. I mean, let's face it, Elvis sounds a lot more like Hunk Houghton than he does No Doubt or the Smashing Pumpkins or any modern rock band. As I said at the beginning of my review, I am willing to acknowledge that Elvis played a seminal role in the development of rock and rock, but by the same token I think that Elvis was definitely evolutionary musically, even if he was revolutionary in terms of impact.
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| Daddy is surprisingly gracious considering Peggy has just brought home a surly lout. |
Peggy now takes it upon herself to start plugging his new record. Finally, she manages to get a record exec to pitch the record to higher ups in New York. Vince, however, is hardly appreciative. He keeps her waiting 20 minutes at a restaurant and then mooches a meal off her. She brings him home to mom and dad (what was she thinking?), and Vince continues his surly routine. Mom and dad are having a cocktail party, and one of the guests tries to draw Vince into a discussion of jazz. "Lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about," he snaps before storming out. Peg follows him and gives him a scolding. He responds by grabbing and kissing her. She pushes him away, but he forces another kiss on her. She pushes him away again, but judging by her expression and body language she's definitely turned on. "It's just the beast in me," he explains. I'm impressed that Peggy managed to suppress a chuckle.
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| What does she see in him again? |
I lack the sense of context to interpret this scene accurately. Is the point that Vince is a childish jerk, and that Peg is a self-destructive slut for chasing after him? Or is the point that Vince is down-to-earth kind of guy taking a stand against pretentious discussions about atonal jazz. Or something between the two? Maybe Vince is an insecure jerk, but Peg sees through that gruff exterior to the soulful man inside. Squares, rebels, bad boys, good girls... the role have all changed so much over time. Nowadays, parents having a cocktail party and serving drinks and talking jazz would be shorthand for "the cool parents." Nowadays, a girl who behaved like Peg would be a "doormat." I'm not sure what each represented in 1957.
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| Vince goes ballistic yet again... this time because someone else recorded the song he was planning to cover. |
Well, Peg thinks she's sold his record, but when they go to the record store to buy a copy they find that the label stole Vince's idea and had Mickey Alba record the song using Vince's arrangement. Apparently, the "kids are crazy about it." I think this again highlights the similarity between Elvis and the supposedly square crooners he supplanted. Mickey Alba is Perry Como, isn't he? Odd that they would be competing over the same song and arrangements. I mean, you don't see Mick Jagger and Eminem battling over the rights to cover the same material, do you?
Vince responds to this turn of events by going to the record exec's office and slapping (!) him. (In a weird way, I think I'd rather be punched than slapped.) He also decides to start his own record label, and he asks Peggy to join him. Actually, I'm not sure it is much of an invitation. What he actually says is, "I'm making the decisions now. I can't louse things up any worse than you did." How does Peggy respond to this latest broadside? Does she slap him and walk out? No, of course not. In fact, she offers to quit her job (!!!) and join Vince in this risky venture. Yet again, I lack the context to interpret. To me, Peg seems like woman with a self-esteem problem and a pathological desire to be humiliated. In 1957, was she the plucky chick who follows her instincts and hooks up with the dreamy rebel?
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| What do you think? Quid pro quo? Or innocent dinner date? |
They go back into the recording studio, and Vince/Elvis bangs out "Treat Me Nice," the first actually upbeat number in the movie. Again, Peggy works at selling it. Over and over, she gets turned down by DJs who don't want to give airtime to an unknown. Finally, she runs into an acquaintance, Teddy Talbot (Dean Jones), a DJ on a local radio station. She urges him to play the record. He finally agrees. He then asks her out on a date. She accepts. Hmmm. I am reading too much into this when I say that it seems to me that she is implicitly prostituting herself to make the sale? There is definitely something of a quid pro quo in his asking her out immediately after agreeing to play the record.
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| "It starts the hammers pounding in my skull."
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Well, Talbot first plays the record as background music for a pet food commercial, but the phone lines light up and demand that he play it without reading over it. He does, and Vince and Peggy have a smash hit on their hands. Vince makes a record store appearance where he gets swarmed by a bunch of girls who symbolically push Peggy out of the frame. That night, Vince shows up at Peggy's hoping for a "celebration." He makes his intentions clear by saying to her, "You look sexy tonight. It starts the hammers pounding in my skull," a line that surely produced swoons in the audience at the time. Unfortunately, Peggy is committed to consummating her deal with Talbot by going out with him that night. "I thought this was one night you wouldn't let me down," Vince whines petulantly, conveniently forgetting that Peggy has been his biggest/only supporter from day one. "Vince, I won't be subject to your beck and call," she replies. Her response would be more of a declaration of independence if she weren't going out instead on a date she made in order to sell his record in the first place.
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| Check out the tailfins on that baby! |
Vince soon lets his success go to his head. He starts throwing wild parties and he buys a snazzy white convertible with huge tailfins. Peggy shows up at one of his bashes and finds him drooling over pretty blond Laury Jackson (Anne Neyland). Vince tells Peggy he's bringing Laury to New York for a TV special he's been invited to do. Jealous Peggy informs him that in that case, she won't be coming along. Vince sloughs that off with equanimity. Unfortunately, not all of Vince's encumbrances are so easily disposed of. Before he can leave for New York, Vince gets a blast from the past when Hulk Houghton shows up. Houghton insists on resuming their partnership and demands a spot on the special. Vince agrees to push for it.
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| Check out Vince's dancers... they're all middle-aged guys. You don't see that in your average Britney Spears video. |
The TV special is the highpoint of the movie, as Vince/Elvis performs a rocking version of "Jailhouse Rock." It is big production number, complete with fake jail cells and a dozen dancers, but this is vintage Elvis, a snarling, gyrating show-stopper. Is Elvis a good dancer? Naw, he's a twitchy white boy, but he's got a big voice, and he definitely heats up what is already a damn fine rock song. I doubt he'll cause many ecstatic reactions among today's first-time viewers, but it is a good, old-fashioned, Hollywood-style production number.
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| The Elvis charm in action: Checking out Sherry's boobs (top), boring her silly (middle), and winning her over with a single kiss (bottom). |
Unfortunately, when it comes time for Houghton to play, the network brass quickly the pull the plug on him. Apparently, Houghton's sound is too out-dated for network TV... which is odd considering the sorts of acts that made it onto network TV well into the 1960s. Anyway, this leads to the long-brewing confrontation between Houghton and Vince. Houghton brings up the old contract, but Vince dismisses it out of hand and says that his lawyer has voided it long ago. This actually makes sense since Houghton really wasn't bringing anything to the table and had secured the agreement under fraudulent conditions anyway (by hiding knowledge about the fan mail), but it begs the question about why the filmmakers wasted several minutes of screen time earlier on setting up the contract in the first place. Anyway, though not legally bound, Vince figures he owes Houghton for helping him out in prison, so he offers him ten percent of his earnings to be his flunky. Though Vince is sort of cruel to Houghton, he actually show more consideration to this ex-con who tried to fleece him than to Peg who has turned her whole life upside down to help him. Very odd.
The plot now moves along fast and furious. Vince goes off to Hollywood for a movie deal, neglecting his recording career in the process.... This is, of course, pretty ironic since Elvis in fact did exactly that in real life. Vince meets his co-star, another pretty blond, Sherry Wilson (Jennifer Holden)... Laury disappears without a trace. The movie suits want to drum up publicity for the forthcoming movie by having Vince and Sherry paint the town red, but instead of taking her to hot night spots, Vince takes her on a redneck safari: drag racing, county fair, fast food, and a tour of movie star homes. She is not amused, and when he takes her home, she pointedly tells him not to bother walking her to the door. But get this... the first scene they have to film together is a love scene. At first, she's dreading it, but after a couple of wet Elvis-kisses, she's suddenly converted. "I'm coming all unglued," she gushes. Yuck. Before we know it, they're frolicking together in his pool.
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| Elvis in a stylish sweater, long pants, and saddle shoes... standard attire for SoCal pool parties really. |
Speaking of pools, we now get our next musically number when Vince throws a pool party and entertains the crowd with a rendition of "You're So Square," a solid little tune, but definitely a step down from the "Jailhouse Rock" number. Apparently, it is a big hit because one of the female partygoers tells him, "Gee Vince, when you sing it's really Gonesville." That's good, right? Am I the only one who finds 1950s style hipster lingo especially amusing? Peggy shows up, and suddenly Vince is gushing about how pleased he is to see her. But she's seemingly finally learned her lesson and she tells him that her visit is strictly business. She wants him to get back into the studio. "Nobody gets so big they can ignore the records. Not even you," she warns. IRONY ALERT! I mean, damn. This is sort of like Robert Downey, Jr. playing a druggie in Less Than Zero (1987) and then turning into a living version of the character himself. Do you think Elvis ever reflected back on Jailhouse Rock when he was making Girl Happy (1965) and hadn't see the charts in ages?
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| Vince ordering Hunk to walk the dogs. |
The rapidly approaching ending requires all sort of plot contortions. First of all, the Vince/Hunk relationship quickly goes sour. Though Hunk understood that he was signing on to become a highly-paid flunky, he resents being asked to walk Vince's dogs. Dude, you're getting ten percent of Vince's dough. Take the dogs to the park and shut up! Then, Vince gets an offer to sell the record company that he and Peggy started for $750,000, which I believe was a very large sum of money in 1957 (and is not bad in 2001 either, btw). Peg's share would be about $250K after taxes. But when he tells Peggy about the deal, she goes to pieces and yells at him about being overly focused on the money. Arrgh! Just a few minutes ago she's telling him it is all business between them, now she's suddenly reversing course. I know that this is just supposed to represent her getting in touch with her true feelings for Vince while earlier she was putting up a brave front... but heck, even if she wants to end up with Vince, why not sell out and then move out to Hollywood to be with him.
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| Heroic Vince forgives Houghton and reconciles with Peggy. |
Vince and Peggy fight, and she finally storms out of room. This sets off Houghton, who has had a few too many and decides to defend her honor. He starts beating on Vince who is either too chicken or too honorable to fight back. Since Vince has been a cad throughout, I vote for the former. This fun and games continue for several moments until Houghton punches Vince in the Adam's apple, causing his throat to swell up. Vince gets rushes to the hospital and after emergency surgery comes out all bandaged up. Well, Peggy and Houghton show up. Peggy declares her love, and Houghton apologizes profusely. Vince, finally growing up in the midst of crisis, seems to accept both. Of course, the question is whether he'll ever be able to sing again. The doctor says his throat is healed, but he's scared. Finally, though, Peggy manages to convince him to try, and with the love of a good woman to support him, he finds the courage to sing. In order words, Elvis-standard schmaltz.
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| Serenading Peggy after getting his voice back. |
This is, by consensus, the best Elvis movie, and frankly, it ain't very good. It is unquestionably a time capsule, and I am sure many a dissertation could be written on the cultural stereotypes contained herein, but aside from a couple of good musical numbers, Jailhouse Rock has little to recommend it. The story is borderline incoherent at times, and I don't think that the 44 year gap between then and now completely explains the problems I had figuring out why the characters were behaving the way they do. Several plotline arise and disappear without warning, including the original Houghton/Vince contract, Vince's two blondies, and Vince's money problems causes by overspending and bad tax management. That said, the acting isn't half bad. Mickey Shaughnessy (who plays Houghton) actually manages to carry off his role with a certain dignity, and even Elvis is pretty solid, although at times he does seem distracted. The real find is Judy Tyler who brings a certain sexy verve to her role as Peggy. She would have been especially good in a witty 1930-1940s style comedy -- His Girl Friday (1940), for example. Of course, seeing her is bittersweet. Mere days after the filming of Jailhouse Rock, she was killed in a car accident at the age of 23. Apparently, her death so affected Elvis that he couldn't bear to watch the movie thereafter... which is a shame because it contained various life lessons that The King would have been wise to reflect on.
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(2.5 out of 5)