VIVA LAS VEGAS - HD DVD review

From 1956 to 1969, in the second phase of his phenomenal career, Elvis Presley made a whopping thirty-one films! I had no idea until I looked it up. It's probably because he made so many films in so short a time and they were so very much alike that they all tend to blur together. At least, for a casual Elvis fan like me. Frankly, after his debut as a rock-and-rock sensation in the mid fifties, I sorta lost track of and lost interest in him. Nevertheless, the King was at the top of his game in MGM's 1964 release "Viva Las Vegas," one of his most popular and financially successful movies, and in this HD DVD high-definition transfer it looks and sounds better than anyone ever could have expected.

Apparently, Col. Tom Parker, Elvis's manager, wanted Elvis to make formulaic films that would deliver exactly what the entertainer's fans wanted and little more, despite Elvis's pleas to expand as an actor. With "Viva Las Vegas," MGM provided a bigger budget than usual, filmed almost entirely on location, and secured a top-notch director, George Sidney ("Annie Get Your Gun," "Showboat," "Kiss Me Kate," "Pal Joey," "Bye Bye Birdie"). The result may be a cut above most of Elvis's movies, but for me it still comes off as little more than a pleasant, upscale nightclub revue.

In this one, Elvis plays Lucky Jackson, a singing race-car driver. Why he races cars if he can sing so well is anybody's guess. The movie informs us he's a famous driver, too, but it doesn't show in the beginning of the film because he hasn't much money, and his car's got no engine. He and his mechanic, Shorty Fansworth (Nicky Blair), arrive in Las Vegas to compete in the Las Vegas Grand Prix (which didn't actually exist at the time of the movie). Lucky isn't in town long before he meets, first, a friendly rival, the Italian racing champion, Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova), who drives Ferrari (what else?), and, second, the soon-to-be love of his life, Rusty Martin (Ann Margret), a hotel pool manager.

In a plot too flimsy to mention, Lucky loses what little money he has when he falls into a swimming pool, and he and Shorty have to don waiter's uniforms to earn enough dough to buy an engine for Lucky's race car. From that point on, Lucky has to deal with money problems on the one hand and chase after Rusty on the other.

The film is bright and colorful and totally devoid of anything that might resemble reality. It's a fantasy picture, where Elvis and Ann-Margret break out into song and dance every two minutes, and the color and sparkle of an empty-headed musical abound from start to finish.

Elvis is a dreadful actor, at least in the roles in which I've seen him, and "Viva Las Vegas" proves no exception. Happily, he doesn't have to do much acting here. He just has to look handsome and charming, and, of course, sing up a storm. Ann-Margaret, who seems more able to cope with what little dialogue the film offers, fares better, and their romantic entanglement comes off rather sweetly.

In the end, "Viva Las Vegas" is more like a travelogue for the Nevada Tourist Bureau than a legitimate motion picture; yet it has its attractions, and a couple of the songs are well worth the wait. From beginning to end we hear the title song, "Viva Las Vegas," sung three times, plus "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "The Lady Loves Me," "C'mon Everybody," "Today, Tomorrow and Forever," "The Climb" (a dance number with the Jubilee Four providing the vocals, a highlight of the show), "Wha'd I Say?," "If You Think I Don't Need You," "Viva Las Vegas" (I told you, again and again), "I Need Somebody to Lean On," and "My Rival." Then it closes out with, yeah, you guessed it.

I couldn't help thinking as I watched "Viva Las Vegas" how almost quaint the city looked back in 1963 when they made the film. Everything was just as glitzy as it is now, but much flatter. There were few of the high-rises we see today. And Elvis was still young and trim. Weren't we all?

Video:
The HD picture quality looks excellent, which should come as no surprise to anyone has seen what Warner Bros. did with their newest standard-definition version. The studio obviously had a good master print to work with, which they cleaned up and transferred to disc at 1080 resolution. They preserved the movie's original 2.40:1 aspect ratio, and they ensured the film's colors remained fast, deep, and realistic. Hues are natural, never gaudy or bright, despite the movie's setting. Black levels are solid, reds are flaming, and whites glisten. Yet nothing is glassy or oversaturated. What's more, as with the SD edition, the screen is clear and clean, with hardly a trace of grain in sight (except in a couple of pieces of stock outdoor footage), and definition is vivid. The video quality makes the movie quite a pleasure to watch, and given that it was made over four decades ago, that's saying a lot. It looks better than most new films on disc.

Audio:
The film's soundtracks come in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus 5.1, and Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural (for that one purist who wants to hear the movie's original mono). The TrueHD 5.1 remix is ultrasmooth, with a good stereo spread across the front speakers. While there is not much energy in the frequency extremes and not much more than a little musical bloom in the rears, the dynamics are reasonably vigorous, and the midrange is well balanced. In DD+ we get a slightly more forward sonic image than in TrueHD, with not quite as much depth perception or polish; but, as always, the differences are minor. About the only thing I would fault is that the new audio formats sometimes make voices in dialogue sound a trifle nasal, as though they were dubbed later.

Extras:
The several bonus items on the HD DVD are carried over from the SD Deluxe Edition, and they all come in standard definition. The first attraction is an audio commentary by Steve Pond, author of the book "Elvis in Hollywood." His comments are not only informative, they are unusually honest. He admits, for instance, that most of Elvis's movies were mediocre, with "Viva Las Vegas" at least having a decent budget and production values. The second major attraction is a newly made featurette, "Kingdom: Elvis in Vegas," a twenty-minute segment recounting the final phase in Elvis's career, his love affair with Las Vegas in the 1970s and his headline nightclub acts.

Beyond those things, the disc contains twenty-four scene selections but no chapter insert; a widescreen theatrical trailer for "Viva Las Vegas"; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. As always, the HD DVD also includes pop-up menus, bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, an indicator of elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.

Parting Shots:
"Viva Las Vegas" gave Elvis's fans exactly what they wanted: music, pretty girls, music, dancing, and more music, all set amid the glamour and glitter of America's fanciest city. Today, I'd say dedicated fans might still find that about all they want, so WB's new HD transfer, as nice as it looks and sounds, is probably a godsend. For the rest of us, the movie might not be quite the pinnacle of Hollywood romantic comedies or movie musicals we'd hope for, and it might not hold quite the allure.