Kissin' Cousins

Kissin' Cousins (1964)

Runtime: 96 minutes

Directed by: Gene Nelson

Starring: Elvis Presley, Arthur O'Connell, Jack Albertson, Glenda Farrell, Yvonne Craig

From: MGM

Oh, this ended up being a more interesting-and a lot more fun to write-review than I was expecting. No one on Letterboxd seems to agree (at least yet) but at least I loved it. That lengthy block of text is below and I'll return tomorrow night.

Before I get to talking about the film, let me give some backstory. Yesterday was the 80th birthday of one Elvis Aron Presley. The reason why I didn't watch then review this film yesterday: like Gary Busey in D.C. Cab, I don't work on Elvis' birthday. Actually, I was busy yesterday, but the made-up story sounds funnier.

Anyhow, like many I think that the music of Presley is great with all the classic tunes and yet I had only seen bits and pieces of a few films and never one from beginning to end. Recently at a store I found a box set of all his Warner Brothers/MGM films (at least the ones they have the rights for at this time) for what seemed like a nice price so I picked that up. Periodically I'll watch a film from there. And I do realize from reputation that most of his acting career consisted of cornball films that are average at best. At least I hope to be entertained and think of him in a positive way instead of his fat bloated days where he ingested massive quantities of drugs daily and had his career mismanaged by Colonel Tom Parker.

Now, onto this film, which I picked at random and I thought it amusing that Elvis plays two characters, cousins who look different as one has blond hair. The plot isn't complex: the government wants to build a missile base on a mountain in the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. Problem is, a backwoods hick family (that's how the movie portrays them) known as the Tatums own and live on the mountain and want nothing to do with the government. A small group of Army soldiers and Josh Morgan (an Air Force guy played by Elvis who grew up in the region) try one last time to convince them, and wacky misadventures happen, including Josh discovering he has a cousin named Jodie Tatum who looks exactly like him except for the color of his hair. Yep, except for some old-school photography tricks where you see both in the same shot it's mostly accomplished by doubles.

The movie is indeed a cornball thing; the Tatum family are not portrayed with a deft touch; they are moonshine-making overall-wearing possum-eating poor white trash; think The Beverly Hillbillies or Hee-Haw for the stereotypes you get to see. I won't break down the plot as it's thin and not that important anyhow, so I won't get into the underdeveloped or unresolved plot points.

The film's quite goofy but at least it's inoffensive (the Tatum clan are portrayed as good-hearted folk who are nice simple people and their fears of the government intruding on them are probably well-founded; the broad jabs at the incompetence of the government/military are amusing and unfortunately accurate too) and there are some legitimate laughs to be had. The songs are decent but they definitely aren't classics by any means. The scenery (when it isn't obvious sets that still have their charm) of California as Tennessee was pretty, too. And, you get to see Arthur O'Connell-a long way from Anatomy of a Murder-as the patriarch of the family, Pappy. Yes, Pappy! Also, there's Jack Albertson before Willy Wonka and Yvonne Craig before she was Batgirl on the 60's Batman show.

Let me mention then some odd things. At random times a whole throng of like 15 or 20 women (known as the Kittyhawks!) who appear from the woods for a gag or a plot point. They do appear in bikinis in one scene and appear in a big dance number at the end so I guess they serve a point. One of them was Teri Garr!

Oh, and Josh Morgan and Azalea Tatum (Craig's character) fall in love. At first I though that was nice then the realization hit: hey, wait a minute, these characters are cousins! Their relationship is explained and they aren't first cousins so I suppose it's OK but it's still kind of weird, ESPECIALLY when you further think about it and realize that Azalea loves a guy who looks just like her brother! You know, the movie is more awkward and surreal than I first realized. Yet, it is a good reason to watch these silly films, to notice strange aspects such as that.