THAT'S THE WAY IT IS - PAGE 3
Even if you're not an Elvis fan, you'll be one by the end of this concert movie. His greatest asset was his easy empathy through that marshmallow/high-octane voice; and he's described by Rick Schmidlin, restoration producer of the SPECIAL EDITION, as `Truly THE greatest vocalist of the 20th Century´.
Candid rehearsals also reveal Elvis as a charismatic bandleader who could jam on guitar, piano, AND as a vocalist. Perhaps, especially during the MGM studio rehearsals, he's just the textbook definition of charisma. He's impish, soulful, commanding, nerdy, hyper, distracted, playful and mesmerizing, eg with Westlake/Most's, How the Web Was Woven solo at the piano, as Elvis awes his own guitarist John Wilkinson--then deliberately falls off his piano-stool.
MGM filmed Elvis in August 1970, launching his 2nd year of live Vegas performances. He's good-natured, and adolescently naughty. By the 2nd/3rd day of studio rehearsals, he gets rather phallic trying to `resurrect´ his floppy mic, and while singing Leiber/Stoller´s Love Me and The Next Step is Love, he wears his chunky glasses upside down, and mocks the film director; yet he clearly took singing seriously after a decade of career-killing Hal Wallis flicks. He often performs fall-outs during these rehearsals, managing to split his pants. Elvis is 35, fit as an athlete and agile as a panther; and just *eats everything up*.
We see none of his legendary temper, although he's always musically in charge. Instead, he mock-challenges his `Memphis Mafia´, some 9 bodyguards credited as `Technical Assistants´(!), for interfering with the ballroom rehearsal, so Joe Esposito throws smoldering cigarette-butts at him, and a giggling cigarette fight ensues....long rehearsals needed comic relief.
Surprisingly, he's got opening night jitters (a perfectionist, he suffered stage-fright his whole career). While he sweats through his shirt backstage, he cheekily reads congratulatory telegrams, including one from Tom Jones wishing him to `break both legs´ (it´s long been known that Elvis adapted Jones´ 1969 stage moves to reinvent himself at Vegas, so they became friends), and another one, which supposedly reads `My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me?....signed, The Pope´. Chuck-D of Public Enemy now calls this scene `a brief glimpse of the natural showman beneath the crass Vegas glitter´. The show portion is spliced together from 6 nights at the International Hotel.
In one classic scene, an overenthusiastic blonde leaps into his arms on stage. By Vegas, he'd learned to avoid being pulled into the crowd, yet maintained a compassion for his fans that no other performer knew how far to take. We see him take impromptu `walks´ through the audience, and dispense real kisses, delighting everyone (one happy onlooker mouths `Look at that´). He even joke-threatens to kiss a hapless guy offering him only a handshake!
Reportedly, he never let cameras stop him from doing anything. Throughout his `punk lounge´ (Jerry Scheff) period he continued performing his 1950s hits, but often gave them short shrift, preferring to do `killer covers´, or presenting new, heartbreakingly meaningful love-gone-wrong songs (best exemplified by the plaintive strings+oboe-driven I´ve Lost You, tragically only on the 1970 version. First performed here, a month later it charted to No.32). Nervous at first, he tries anything/everything to distance himself from `performing´: he psyches out the band (`Ready?....I´m not´) and interjects `shove it up your nose´ into Suspicious Minds. During the intro to Love Me Tender, impishly planning his kissing-spree, he sings a self-mocking limerick in falsetto: `Toreadoro toreador, who dat was wi´choo onda floor´.
He famously never performed a song the same way twice, and as `stand-in bandleader´, he´d physically punctuate whatever musical element caught his attention on the night. His perfectly timed chest-action to Ronnie Tutt´s drum-fills is just one high-point of many. Elvis didn´t so much perform, as communed with his music. His communing with audiences often took the form of monologues about his career--during one he claims this concert film will be called `Elvis Shakes Off His Excess´. Having lost his shyness, he now couldn´t be shut up.
Discipline + talent allowed him to take happy risks with his set-list. When he pre-empts the orchestra, snapping from All Shook Up into the correct tempo/key of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, he's flying without a net. This necessitated that oft-quoted eye-contact with his band. He said he `liked to mix things up´. When he springs One Night on the band while sipping yellow Gatorade (on CD he accused it of looking `used´), his lead guitarist hesitates, so Elvis prompts him:
`Tawdala-tawdala-tawdala--Remember?´. As they rip into the song, Elvis and the Sweet Inspirations start to-ing-and-fro-ing, the ladies yelling back between beats. Elvis reacts as if machine-gunned, admitting afterwards, `If we start doin´ those, man, we´ll be here all night´....We wish!! Sadly he may´ve been (ab)using uppers, and ALLEGEDLY cocaine, by this time: one leg often hyper-beats his ballad tempos. At times his self-distancing looks like self-parody....or boredom. His onstage `guitar technique´ is a rare low-point; and his virile Jones-esque, pumped-up delivery with feet planted very wide, might seem awkward to some--but his audiences weren´t looking for polish. They wanted to connect with him in the moment, so a few `flaws´ ultimately work for him.
The show is/was a phenomenal success, but there is one mistake. Near the end, after Elvis jackhammers Suspicious Minds, and as he and his drummer explode in triumph, they're left in the dark by the lighting guy! The 2 versions of E-TTWII offer rather different content. The Special Edition, while 0:13 mins shorter than the original, still features extended rehearsal scenes, music credits, different on-the-night performances (although Schmidlin's culling choices are sometimes dubious), and a different ending to the `cigarette fight´: the 1970 version reveals Elvis had set some of his `Mafia´ on fire. Watch both versions to enjoy him as he really was. So real that it hurts. Elvis died exactly 7 yrs later (8/16/1977) in `privacy´ in his own bathroom, with a houseful of oblivious minders.
E-TTWII (1970/2001) is the very best of Elvis concert-films; testimony to the fact that he Never Lost That Lovin' Feeling.
Click below for 3 more pics from TTWII:
Rehearsing For The Show
Suspicious Minds
Elvis In Action
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