Rathmines is a long way from Dalkey so I hadn’t been at the new-dangled Stella since its refurbishment. My local was the much lamented Forum Glasthule with its perennially sticky floor. I have to report the Stella is mighty fine. It’s comfortable (we had a couch) the service is great, and you can enjoy a drink in an actual glass while watching the film.. However, they need to get rid of those godawful chi-chi lamps.
Elvis the Movie was disappointing. I first heard Elvis when I was standing outside a record hop at the Collins Tennis Club in 1958. The record was I Got Stung – the last record he released as a 78. The classic One Night was on the A-side – but I was struck by the pure energy of the B-side. He disappointed our rebel aspirations by entering the army and doing all those appalling films but his early records and occasional emerging into the light (especially the Memphis Sessions – check out After Loving You, Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto) secured his place in my affections. The heritage was safe and solid despite the tawdry later years in Las Vegas.
The definitive biography of Elvis is Peter Guralnick’s highly readable two-volume classic: Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. Reading them you realise that despite the extra-terrestrial glamour, the gorgeous voice and the universal adulation, Elvis was a simple country-boy with a fatal lack of moral courage. His biggest sin was to allow himself to be separated from his musical peers (such as Scotty Moore and Bill Black) and became the thing of a fairground hustler - Colonel Tom Parker. Cheesy merchandise a speciality. No colonel, no Tom and not even a Parker. The movie touches on this aspect of his life but it fails absolutely at giving us a more complete and complex account – it was all flash, bang, wallop accompanied by some serious ham from Tom Hanks. And even then we never got to hear one full song – one demonstration of Elvis at his prime. The corny use of Suspicious Minds to hammer home the message that Elvis was been hustled by Parker and Las Vegas villains was trite in the extreme. The guy playing Elvis gave an excellent imitation of the man and look out for a wonderful Little Richard cameo. Elvis the Movie is a mildly entertaining show-biz confection but didn’t come close to capturing the tragic trajectory of the man’s life. Nor did it want to do so.
