Change Of Habit

Change of Habit (1969)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: William A. Graham

Starring: Elvis, Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara McNair, Jane Elliott, Edward Asner

From: Universal

A movie I've been wanting to see for ages: Elvis in a serious role as Dr. JOHN CARPENTER.

Last night on Turner Classic Movies they played a few of the movies that were written about in the 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards, from Harry and Michael Medved. This included Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Conqueror, The Swarm and this motion picture-the last fictional role for Elvis. I've never read the book but from Wikipedia I know this is on the list as they found it absurd that one of the nuns in this movie was played by Mary Tyler Moore. I discovered this was not the only absurdity present.

A trio of nuns (one of whom was Black) go incognito and work at the “inner city” clinic that Carpenter runs. There's plenty of friction: the old priest in the area is an uptight A-hole, a laughable version of a mob boss rules the block, a white grocery store owner is ripping off the minorities, two men are the late 60's movie version of The Black Panthers, and of course Elvis has the hots for Moore. Much of this is rather clumsy and of course there were some laughs at how po-faced this was. All that being said, too much of this was irritating instead of fun like the typical cornball Presley picture & it was rather bizarre to see him in something where you heard the N word, a certain homosexual slur (yes, that one), mild cursing, and even a sexual assault. I wish The King got to do more serious roles like this... if only the movies themselves would have been better.

The trio attempting to ingrain and ingratiate themselves into the community by holding a big block party, which of course gets the stereotypical resentment from the expected parties. While there are wacky moments like Elvis being able to do his KING-FU (his version of the martial arts) in the final act, they pretty much soiled the bed when they introduced autism into the film. Apparently the first time it was mentioned in a Hollywood production, I was stunned they managed to sneak in an accurate fact-the little girl who is autistic is shown stimming at one point-among the terribly inaccurate portrayal of this affliction. She doesn't talk nor like being touched: Change of Habit said this had to be because of a traumatic act early in her life. If that wasn't bad enough, a **horrifying**-and long-scene happens where Doctor John Carpenter thought that the way to “cure” her of those traits was by... holding her in his arms for hours despite her constant screams of pain. If that wasn't disgusting enough, that treatment worked! No way could I even give this an OK rating after that subplot.

But hey, Elvis does perform the song Rubberneckin'...