"At the Top of His Amazing Career"

At New Critics, there's a great review of 1958's King Creole, starring Elvis Presley. As the review attests, when given good material the King really could act.

When you go on the Graceland tour (I've gone four times), one of the big points the tour drives home is how much Elvis cared about developing a real acting career. Unfortunately for Elvis, the Colonel steered the King mostly toward roles in throwaway B-movies like Clambake. On the tour, you get hints of Elvis' frustration at having to do the B-movies. Interestingly, the two films the Graceland tour features the most prominently are King Creole and Love Me Tender. Many critics consider these two films as the two which actually brought out Presley's acting talents.

Here's the trailer for King Creole. Since it's Elvis, the trailer plays up the musical numbers, but one does get a taste of the noirish "grittiness" of the film.

The trailer announces in big white letters "At the Top of His Amazing Career." I think the trailer might be right. Aside from the later and brief plateau of the '68 Comeback Special and Memphis Sessions, Elvis's career took a long slow decline artistically. Throwaway B-movies, and throwaway songs. Still, even in his final lounge act days, Elvis remained a performer with a flair for the dramatic. He stilled wanted to act, but the chance at movie roles had passed him by.

Elvis impersonation is now a cottage industry of sorts, and while the impersonators and audiences often take such shows quite seriously, there nevertheless exists a certain tinge of knowing irony. Two famous Elvis impersonators during Elvis' lifetime, Phil Ochs and Andy Kaufman, presented an admiring, wholly celebratory (and oddly confrontational to their audiences) take on the King. Maybe they appreciated what Elvis was really trying to do ... be an actor. Or maybe they were just paying tribute to the King.