Jailhouse Rock

Richard Thorpe, USA 1957, 96 mins

Jailhouse Rock is early Presley, so the songs are fresh and cool, and Presley himself is svelte and muscular. What little plot there is takes Presley as a feisty young man, a little too eager to lose his temper and use his fists, who accidently kills a man in a bar and is sent to jail.

But this is not Let Him Have It or Dead Man Walking, so Presley gets cell-mated with Mickey Shaugnessey, an old-timer who can also sing, and soon Elvis is learning to croon a little too. On release, Elvis decides to go for the big time, with a little help from Judy Tyler. Can Elvis make it, in spite of the odds?

The plot is really just there as a framework on which to display Elvis and his songs. The set piece numbers are fantastic, sure to have you bopping in the seats, while the contrivances to get Elvis to show off bits of his body - Elvis getting whipped, Elvis bare chested, Elvis covered in coal dust - are unintentionally funny in a bad gay porno movie kind of way, rather than risque, as was originally intended (This is 1957 remember - showing your torso on film was considered to morally corrupt young girls then).

Elvis lives on - and he rocks!

Scott M. Keir, 1998.