Morsch Describes a Thing

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Elvis just too cool in 'Blue Hawaii'

If this is one of those "columns" where Morsch just talks about how much he likes a movie, I am going to be miffed. How long will his audience (me) tolerate these lame posts about "I had dinner with my daughter" or "I saw a play"?

Every once in a while I enjoy being reminded just how cool Elvis was. And in the film “Blue Hawaii,” Elvis is cooler than the other side of the pillow.

I guess Elvis was cool until he got hooked on drugs, put on 200 pounds, and died pinching a loaf. Then again, that's probably how Morsch is destined to go. He's already 1/3 of the way there.

It’s always been one of my favorite movies, so seeing it again recently was a treat. In fact, while watching the movie and enjoying the music, I got online and ordered the soundtrack, which arrived in the mail a few days later.

I wasn't going to comment on this paragraph, until I realized that the next paragraph is totally unrelated. That's it - he ordered the soundtrack, and it got delivered. Huh. Wonders will never cease.

Elvis, whose character is named Chadwick Gates, was only 26 years old when the film was made in 1961. One thing I didn’t know was that Angela Lansbury, who played his mother, Sarah Lee Gates, was only 36 years old at the time of filming. She later said the role was the worst of her career, but really, the comedy interaction between her and Fred Gates (understatedly portrayed by the brilliant actor Roland Winters, who I quite enjoyed in the role of Charlie Chan in several films) is hilarious.

This is totally uninteresting. This isn't even a movie review - he's just telling who played the characters and what the names of the characters are. He's like a talking version of IMDB.

Despite the wonderful Hawaiian scenery and, of course, the pretty girls that were a staple of many Elvis films, I always go back to the music in this movie.

You don't often hear people use the phrase "pretty girls." "Hey, dude, party this weekend!" "NICE! Will there be any pretty girls there?"

Critics over the years have described these Elvis movies as having dull plots and mediocre songs. But I really like the CD and have been playing it in my car since I got it. I particularly like “Rock-A-Hula Baby” and “Moonlight Swim.” Of course, the Elvis hit, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” would become Elvis’ closing song for many of the concerts in the 1970s.

I really like how he describes a song in an Elvis movie as "the Elvis hit." Totally useless. Just to make sure we know he's talking about Elvis, shouldn't he have said "many of the ELVIS concerts in the 1970s" as opposed to just "the concerts"? How can he be sure we'll know?

The album spent 20 weeks in 1961 as No. 1 on the Top Pop Albums chart, was Elvis’ biggest selling album during his lifetime and has been certified as triple platinum. The CD I have is a remastered version of the original with eight bonus tracks and was re-released in 1997.

Are you serious? To type this column, Morsch logged on to IMDB (maybe Wikipedia - actually probably Wikipedia) and Amazon.com. He then copied and pasted what he saw. Why would anyone want to read this?

The couple of hours I invested in watching the movie and the $10 I forked over for the CD was time and money well spent.

Way to end on a powerful note, Morsch.

Labels: " Outta Leftfield, "Blue Hawaii, Angela Lansbury, Charlie Chan, Elvis Presley, Mike Morsch, Montgomery Newspapers, Roland Winters

There is truly no method to the labeling madness. Why is Elvis listed after Charlie Chan? And why is Roland Winters, who played Chan and is mentioned before him, labeled last, after "Mike Morsch" and "Montgomery Newspapers"?