Harum Scarum

Harum Scarum (1965)

Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Gene Nelson

Starring: Elvis, Mary Ann Mobley, Fran Jeffries, Michael Ansara, Jay Novello

From: MGM

It's been too long since I've seen an Elvis movie; as his birthday is Friday (expect a review of a different Presley movie on that date) I figured it was time to do so. I picked out the silliest one I have in my collection. I explain all that in my Letterboxd review below: 

Off and on last year, I saw a few movies from Elvis Presley. I figured I should do so as I found a set w/ many films for a low price and I enjoy his music well-enough. Besides, most of his film work is ignored as in general they have the reputation as really corny yet genial things where there's a lot of goofiness and you get some music from him. Going through those movies, they've at least all been different and each has memorable aspects and at least some goofiness and strangeness. So, watching these hasn't been a chore, even if there maybe are all-time classic motion pictures I should be experiencing instead.

Well, as I hadn't done one in a few months and his birthday is in several days, this was the time. I picked out this one in particular as among the ones I have on disc it has the goofiest plot, where The King plays a movie star named Johnny Tyronne; he's touring in the Middle East where he suddenly gets kidnapped in a fictitious country, one that is “stuck 2,000 years in the past” due to isolationism; this is only done so that they could reuse the sets from DeMille's The King of Kings (no kidding). Tyronne has to kill the ruler of the country so that a mysterious person can take over-it's quite easy to figure out who's responsible. In addition, there's such things as orphans, a thieves guild, a group called The Assassins (no, don't think of this as a version of Assassin's Creed), some odious comic relief, along with the expected tropes of Elvis using his martial arts-which I'll call King-Fu-some average songs and no shortage of wacky moments.

It's outlandish and yet I can say that this is average due to said outlandishness and how it's silly. Elvis isn't the most engaged here but at least this is breezy entertainment. As it's the 60's, all the Arab parts are played by white people and there's plenty of stereotyping. Ramadan is brought up but I am not quite sure if the filmmakers quite understood what it was, so that's why it was glossed over. I don't want to go in-depth but one surprising part of the plot is that a prescient point was brought up in this zaniness: foreign companies and/or foreign countries meddling in the affairs of a state so that they can try and exploit their resources or the “right” people are in power for military/political reasons... that typically goes quite bad in due time; there are many examples of this, including involvements from the United States. I was not expecting such a thing to be brought up in a motion picture where Elvis is on a bunch of sets that are supposed to be the Middle East and he warbles songs like Shake That Tambourine.

Billy Barty's in the film and thankfully the role isn't too stereotypical and in fact he has some heroic moments... somehow, using a turkey leg as a weapon is one of them. But, THE true highlight is an incredible moment from the beginning, where we see a minute or two of a Tyronne movie. He beats up some bad guys then has to deal with a jaguar. Well, he JUDO CHOPS THE JAGUAR, knocking it out. That is a reason why I gave this hokum an average rating.