classicsoncall Almost forty years after his death in 1977, Elvis Presley fans still lament the passing of a remarkable music icon. This documentary captures many of the significant moments of the ill fated singer's life and does a respectable job even in the limited TV version shown on cable stations where I happened to catch it. Particularly interesting are the clips from the Fifties which record Presley's emergence on the entertainment scene. His first TV appearance in 1956 offers a respectable version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll", and it was a real trip down memory lane seeing Milton Berle get torn apart by frenzied teenage girls mistaking him for the King. Sure it was a hound dog moment, but Elvis wasn't at all uncomfortable about poking fun at himself. What was a real eye opener was seeing Presley's performance from the waist down a handful of times before he appeared for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show. The documentary follows Elvis from his early days performing through his movie career, military service and eventual return to the concert stage, and features a sufficient sampling of Presley's well known hits. Winding things down, the picture offers a clip of Elvis singing 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' only six weeks before his death, by which point his excessive drug use had taken it's toll and it's readily apparent. His rendition of 'My Way' is particularly poignant as the performer sings "And now, the end is near..." as the film transitions tastefully to the funeral cortège mourned by the entire world at the time. Made in 1981, the documentary may have an outdated feel to modern day viewers, but if you're a fan of Elvis Presley, the picture goes a long way to capture the essence of the King of Rock and Roll.

Wuchak Released in 1981, "This is Elvis" is a documentary covering the rise and fall of Presley made only 3 years after his death and released in 1981. Extensive archival footage is mixed with recreations using actors standing in for Elvis, as well as some recreations shot to look like archival footage.While some people complain about the recreations and say they "don't work," I didn't have a problem with them, at least not the ones where actors play Elvis as a youth. After all, without these sequences we wouldn't get to picture Elvis playing in front of a high school class or playing with black friends on the industrial side of Memphis, etc.The original theatrical version runs 101 minutes while the later TV version added 43 minutes. The former is less "family friendly," depicting the way it really was without censure. For instance, Elvis is shown saying a couple off-color things about his sexual escapades with women on the road. A short time later the narration depicts him lamenting his divorce from Priscilla in 1973, four years before his death in 1977. The made-up monologue makes it sound like Elvis wasn't sure what caused them to grow apart and eventually split. Gee, he might want to quit having adulterous liaisons on the road. That might help. Anyway, the 144-minute TV version cuts these types of things and homogenizes the film for family viewing. It even omits the blubbering "Lonesome Tonight" song from his final concert, which is a must-see. The shorter version is just more gritty and authentic, the way a rock n' roll documentary should be.One great scene is the interview with Elvis' former body guards who wrote a book dissin' him. They were like family for years and understandably felt betrayed. One testifies in the interview that he confronted Presley about his ongoing drug dependency and Elvis finally admitted that he "needed them." A minute later you see the ex-body guard wiping the tears from his eyes.As he aged Elvis was on a spiritual quest and was quoted saying to his hairdresser: "I mean there has to be a purpose ... there's got to be a reason ... why I was chosen to be Elvis Presley. ... I swear to God, no one knows how lonely I get. And how empty I really feel." He thus was preoccupied by such matters for much of the rest of his life, taking trunk-loads of books with him on the road.In his last performance in the documentary it shows Elvis playing for the first time after gaining weight and, for some reason, I was expecting a really fat Elvis, but that wasn't the case at all. Yes his face is bloated and sweaty, but he's clearly only about 25 pounds overweight. Maybe he was heavier before the show and got in shape a bit before the event, I don't know, but he was by no means grotesquely overweight, not at all. Last night I went to a concert and saw some middle-aged men; now they were grossly overweight.Despite Elvis' bad movies, drug addiction and adulteries, he was an amiable, fascinating and talented individual and "This is Elvis" fully demonstrates why he was and is "The King of Rock & Roll." GRADE: A-

kwbucsfan This was one of the most interesting movies, I have ever seen. I like the way it has people portraying Elvis, and the way the narration is done, it is almost authentic. The stock files of Elvis are really interesting. Seeing the real Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, and the other shows he did during the early part of his career, are really cool. Listening to his obvious frustration of being drafted into the army, and the hurt he felt when his mother passed away and his total disgust for the movie treadmill he was on, it revealed quite a bit about the man. I loved watching his comeback and seeing him back on stage in the 1970's again. I had never realized how many health problems that he was having by the mid 1970's and the movie touches somewhat on that as well. For most of the movie, Elvis looked good, and healthy, the most shocking part was near the very end of the movie, when he walks out on stage for the last time in the movie, in one of the two concerts taped for the CBS Special "Elvis In Concert", just how terrible he looked. Seeing him so overweight, and obviously so unhealthy, was quite a shock. And watching him forget the words to "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", was sad. At that point, I think he was already dying. But still a great movie.

Boyo-2 On Elvis' birthday this past year, I watched his movies and documentaries on television all day long. By the end of the day, I was a hooked fan and understood why this man is worshipped around the globe. Since then I have seen many of his movies, concerts and read books.This movie is separate from all of that, as it reveals the man inside the myth. Anyone with even a casual interest in Elvis would find this interesting, but to a fanatic like myself this is immeasurably important. I enjoyed seeing him in the later years practising karate, to the song "Kung Fu Fighting".