Dunham16 The first Elvis film to have a widely marketed DVD remastering, it represents his most frequent nonsense cinematic plot, about the heir to a wealthy and powerful family's money and connections hiding out at a resort to find a girl interested in more than just his family connections and wealth. Released in 1961, it puffs up location shots on Oahu and Elvis at his most machismo appearing in elegant suits, upscale resort wear and at his best physical tone ever in the skimpiest swimwear the censors would allow. Angela Lansbury, playing a rare turn for her as a physical comic marrying earlier her chauffeur in Atlanta and flying to Oahu to live and raise Elvis, has the only other superstar turn. There are more songs packed in than usual, two actually lyric rewrites of classic melodies and none representing Elvis' most famous contributions to the music world. The major money maker of his long film career, most of the storyboard is bot pleasant and enticing. The exception is the scene in which Elvis is expected to be the tour guide and chaperone of four teenage girls on vacation on the island, unaware their chaperone is the secret fiancée of Elvis' father's American mainland boss. Some of the tense sequences, when a young charge acts out by climbing into Elvis' bed to then bait Elvis into spending time behind bars when his fists fly at a hotel bar to then crash a stolen jeep as an underage driver on the lam, seem a bit to R rated and too melodramatic for the flow of a mild comedy with a mild romantic fantasy ending.

Jay Raskin Its a little sad that I'm only the second person in 2011 to review this movie. I guess interest in Elvis has really waned in the last few years.Presley's 28 or so movies are pretty much evenly divided between great, good, fair and poor. This one ranks solidly in the top of the good category. Like "Fun in Acapulco" and "Viva Las Vegas," there's some great scenery, good music, and a plot that holds interest pretty much all the way through.Cinematography takes top honors. Hawaii has hardly ever looked so good.Presley interacts well with the natives and does a good job convincing us that he could be a native boy. He seems fit and comfortable with everything and everyone in the movie.The movie seems more crowded with Presley songs than usual, hardly five minutes goes by before there's another one. Fortunately, they're generally pleasant with an Hawaiian or in one case Jamaican flavor. The song "Can't Help Falling in Love with You" is one of Presley's greatest and unfortunately it is more or less a throwaway here, with Presley singing it to his girlfriend's grandmother more than her.Definitely a must see for Elvis fans and a watchable one for non-Elvis fans.I watched this on the day that the writer Hal Kantner died. He created two excellent television shows in the 1960's, "Julia" and "Valentine's Day." He was an excellent and intelligent comedy writer as this film shows.

Michael_Elliott Blue Hawaii (1961)** (out of 4) After two years in the service, Chad Gates (Elvis Presley) returns home to Hawaii where his parents, including mom played by Angela Lansbury, wants him to join the family business. This doesn't sit too well with Chad because he wants to make his mark on the world by himself but with a little assistance from his girl (Joan Blackman). This is a pretty disappointing film for the music legend as it offers him very little in terms of the ability to show off a performance as the screenplay is so weak and juvenile that just about anyone could have played the lead. There's some good stuff scattered around but for the most part the screenplay doesn't have enough in it to last the entire running time of the film. As I've said, the biggest problem is the screenplay, which delivers a bunch of lame and obnoxious characters. We see Elvis having to deal with his mother as well as an older woman with a group of teenage girls including one (Jenny Maxwell) who thinks she's older than she is. I'm sure these characters were written with humor in mind but all of them come off very forced and obnoxious. These supporting characters really brought the film down even though the actual performers are rather good at bringing these obnoxious people to life. Elvis is decent in the role but it never seemed like he was too interested in the material. He has that typical charm of his but nothing he does ever really jumped out at me. Blackman makes for an attractive lead but she can't add anything else to the movie. The film features the classic "Can't Help Falling in Love" but outside of that I found the music to be quite lame. The various love songs to Hawaii were rather embarrassing as the musical numbers were poorly and lazily handled.

funkyfry Out of the 3 films Elvis made which were set in Hawaii, this is far and away the best and ranks IMHO in the top 5 of all his films, second best in the 1960s behind only "Viva Las Vegas" which had the advantage of a better co-star. This film is a joy to watch, with lovely on-location photography and some of Elvis' better songs including his classic "Can't Help Falling in Love".The story is a sparse affair concerning Chad, a returned G.I. who wants to make his own way in life but whose overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury, great as usual) wants only to hear of him working in the family's pineapple business. Chad figures out a way to get a job with a tourist agency taking advantage of his knowledge of the islands, but a crisis involving one of his underage charges threatens to cut his new career short.The film itself is better than the average Elvis film, not so much because of any redeeming themes or ideas (i.e. "King Creole") but moreso because the script gives the characters witty dialog and the narrative exposition is just heavy enough to keep the audience interested without becoming absurdly dramatic. For example one line that always gets a laugh from an audience is when Chad is trying to convince the schoolteacher that he will be a good tour guide, and she asks him "Mr Gates, are you sure you can handle a teacher and 4 teenage girls?". Just the line itself gets a laugh. This movie has a lot of humor that works very well, it's not like you're sitting there saying "oh look at what Elvis is doing"; a lot of the comedy are situations that would be funny with any decent comedian. Here, as in just a few of his later films like "Follow that Dream", Elvis gets to show he has real ability and good timing for comedy.The narrative structure itself is fairly effective in terms of drawing the audience in -- always a tough job with a story that has so little action and drama. First we're presented with a fairly standard parents vs. kid dramatic story as described above, and then when we meet the tourists there is another important character, the teenage tease Ellie Corbett. She's a rich kid's daughter who feels unloved and is a bit of a JD if you know what I mean. She doesn't want to go see the pineapple farm, she doesn't want to learn to surf, and she doesn't want to attend a hookie-lau. The audience perhaps identifies with her in some sense, and the elements in the audience that want to resist the urge to enjoy this Hawaiian treat are overcome by way of Ms. Corbett's objections being gradually over-ruled. Also she represents a key in the narrative for Chad -- although she initially creates a romantic confusion between Chad and his girlfriend, eventually it's Chad's ability to reach out to her that proves his maturity and his ability at his job. This takes his character beyond the parent vs. child dichotomy and into the world of maturity, where we leave him.