Celluloid Elvis

Related Content

• The Dirt Daubers @ Rhythm Room
  January 5, 2012
• Five Actors (and the hair) That Could Pull Off Elvis
  October 27, 2011
• Elvis Presley Week Kicks Off at The MIM
  August 5, 2011
• Elvis (Food) Is in the Building Tomorrow Only at the Musical Instrument Museum
  August 5, 2011
• From Print: Blogs Teased in Our August 18 Issue
  August 11, 2011

More About

• Elvis Presley
• Ed Sullivan

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Despite the best efforts of several generations of right-wing extremists, it's impossible to watch this DVD, Elvis Presley: The Ed Sullivan Shows(Image Entertainment) today and truly understand just how electrifying Elvis Presley would have seemed to the kids tuning in to Ed Sullivan's weekly variety show in an age as repressed as the '50s. But this is as lewd as America got at the time — a kid in a sport jacket swiveling his hips to the beat while the camera does its best to downplay those gyrations, shooting some songs from the waist up, while, thankfully, girls in the studio audience keep you posted on what's going on below the shot with their shrieks of orgasmic approval. Elvis' first three historic appearances (as seen here in the context of the other less historic vaudeville acts that rounded out the bill) find him rocking through such early hits as "Don't Be Cruel" and "Ready Teddy." But the most revealing moment is a second run through "Love Me Tender." At first, he seems lost in a lonelier place than Lonely Street, until the girls start screaming and he cracks a smile, coming out of his spell to ham it up in full-on Vegas mode, already trapped inside the expectations of his audience.