Movies

If you want to avoid the low-quality movies that Elvis unfortunately made during the 1960's you can still watch this piece. That the "King" is not in the main role gives the film more credibility and you can really say that Love Me Tender is a good movie. With Elvis only as a troubadour works fine and the film remains a proper western too.Perhaps there has been better westerns too but the storyline in this one is enough interesting: a man returns from the American Civil War and finds his wife at home married to another man. With this marital mess and some other problems being solved Elvis drops in and offers some fresh music, or the music that was still fresh when the movie was being made. It is anyway relaxing to see the "King" in a most unspoiled context.

This was a critically acclaimed introductory role for Elvis. This was not one of the more cheesy moneymakers that Col. Tom Parker stuck him with for the remainder of his career (Girl Happy or Blue Hawaii for instance).Elvis showed great depth as an actor in his role as Clint Reno and also showed the potential to broaden his career from the premier musical superstar of our time into one of the crossover megastars that we see commonly today.His music is an integral part of the movie but it isn't put on display the way his future movies do. When you watch this film, try to remember he hadn't done any of those 90-minute rock-n-roll videos with the likes of Ann-Margaret and Nancy Sinatra.LOVE ME TENDER is worth viewing if the viewer is willing to set aside their preconceived expectations of "just another Elvis movie."

The title sounds more like a soap opera than the sombre black & white post-Civil War tale it actually is, the shooting title of which was 'The Reno Brothers'. It was changed to name it after one of the songs sung by the heavy-lidded, swivel-hipped kid playing Richard Egan's young brother, and was the first feature ever to recoup it's entire cost in its first three days.The lad shows promise; I wonder what became of him...