Elvis Presley’s Crown Glistens in EPiC New Film

This Opinion Just In…
Long Live the King: Elvis Presley’s crown glistens in EPiC new film

​Meanwhile, Man on the Run chronicles the Fall and Rise of Paul McCartney
By Deroy Murdock

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears. The main course: The King of Rock & Roll’s early days in Las Vegas.

Esteemed director Baz Luhrmann harvested this new picture  largely from  68 boxes of  film, including 35mm footage from Elvis’ Sin City concerts in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, 16mm spools from contemporaneous shows across America, and informal 8mm images shot on and off the road. This celluloid languished in a studio-owned salt mine in Kansas, untouched by human hands for a half-century.

Team Luhrmann discovered this buried treasure while the Australian helmed his Academy Award-nominated 2022 biopic about this legendary hunk of burning love. Luhrmann told the Los Angeles Times: “I had the power and the muscle to either put it back into the vault and let it rot or do something with it.”

Thankfully, for audiences, now and forever, Luhrmann did something with it.

Luhrmann’s $280-million-grossing hit feature film was propelled by Austin Butler’s career-defining title-role portrayal. In contrast, EPiC does not rely on exceptional acting. Instead, we see and hear Elvis himself, sparkling in the spotlight, from start to finish.

Luhrmann’s eye-popping EPiC interweaves those excavated film reels with TV, concert, and newsreel clips from Elvis’ early years, plus publicity stills, newspaper headlines, fan-magazine covers, and snippets from Elvis’  31-title filmography. Some pictures were stellar (King Creole). Others largely forgotten (Stay Away, Joe). A few contained embarrassing moments. In Live a Little, Love a Little, poor Elvis is reduced to chatting with an actor in  a dog suit. Presley fares far better in this 1968 film as he sings his minor hit “A Little Less Conversation” and steers his date out of a groovy party and back to his place.

Luhrmann sifted through this wealth of material, refined it, and then remastered it. After it was all shook up, he and  his fellow filmmakers  composed the riveting, touching, and endlessly entertaining mosaic that premiered last week in IMAX. Luhrmann’s self-described “dreamscape” expands this weekend into theaters everywhere.

As Elvis narrates this film, via unearthed interviews, he explains that when he hears music he admires (spanning from rhythm and1 blues to opera), he cannot stay put. His body begins to shake. “If you feel it, you can’t help but move to it,” he says. “I once tried to stand still,” he recalls about hearing a particularly lively tune. “I couldn’t do it.”

Likewise, thanks to EPiC’s pulsating energy, I struggled not to tap my toes and bounce my knees so hard that I disturbed nearby filmgoers. To others of us who get ants in our pants when we hear amazing music, good luck remaining motionless through this motion picture.

True to his signature visual style, Luhrmann throws lots of images at filmgoers. He seamlessly jumps from photos of baby Elvis to the stage of Las Vegas’ International Hotel, to a scene of him on the Silver Screen with Ann Margaret, then a practice run is a private space, a few seconds on The Ed Sullivan Show, and back to the hotel for a glimpse of the same song, performed live at the same point, but on a different night, in yet another sparkling costume. Even for a rehearsal, Elvis dons an iridescent, long-
sleeve shirt that makes the legendary tie-dyes of Grateful Dead fame resemble Brooks Brothers banker wear.

And if you blink, you will miss Elvis chatting backstage with Show Business utility player Sammy Davis Jr. and the ever-dapper, Platonic form of male existence, Cary Grant.

Luhrmann’s playground for the retinas dazzled me, although it might dizzy the faint of heart.

Unlike the swirling visuals, the sound remains the same: Close your eyes, and the music and vocals stay perfectly smooth, consistent, and uninterrupted — even as they
call upon this spectrum of sources, all at once. For these twin triumphs of audiovisual editing, Libby Villa and Jonathan Redmond, ACE — respectively — deserve shelves full of gleaming gold trophies.

Elvis does none of this alone. He shines along with his TCB Band. His mellifluous lead guitarist, James Burton, sprightly pianist Glen D. Hardin, and tireless drummer Ronnie Tutt are among the powerful instrumentalists who take care of business. So do the Sweet Inspirations, Elvis’s soulful, gospel-inspired backup vocalists. Together, they soar on “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Polk Salad Annie,” and a mind-blowing rendition of Elvis’ finest song, “Suspicious Minds.” How splendid to get caught in that trap!

Elvis also had high regards for Earth’s No. 1 band, from 1964 to Infinity and beyond: The Beatles. Elvis and Co. beautifully deliver George Harrison’s “Something” and a magnificent number that oscillates between Elvis’ “Little Sister” and the Fab Four’s “Get Back.”

EPiC has posted a self-styled  Listening Party on YouTube. It presents 67 minutes of sizzling soundtrack selections. The visuals are a psychedelic kaleidoscope of shapes and artifacts adorned with gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and other gems.

As Elvis sings, jewelry springs to life. This runs continuously for seven hours. It’s incredibly easy to spin this video and just let it loop, joyously, on and on.

“There’s been a lot written, and a lot said, but never from my side of the story,” Elvis states, as he tells his tale in words and music. He comes across in EPiC as genuine, humble,  honest, and earnest. What a majestic entertainer and what a decent human being.

It is beyond bittersweet to see this severely talented young man in 1969 to ’70 — trim, beautiful, and sexy — knowing now what he never would have imagined then: Within
eight years, he would become fat, drugged, and dead

But not here!

EPiC captures Elvis Presley at the perfect time: at the height of his seductive powers, before the distractions and demons prevailed.

According to Los Angeles Times music critic Mikael Wood, “Luhrmann says he’d like to put  EPiC in Las Vegas’ Sphere, just a mile or so from where Elvis triumphed at the International.”

Yes, please!

Compared to EPiC, Paul McCartney: Man on the Run  is far tamer, but still very good. Director Morgan Neville’s new film concerns the man from Liverpool and how he handled himself after The Beatles disintegrated. This documentary continues its week-old, limited run in cinemas and launches this weekend on Amazon Prime Video.

McCartney initially spent time with his beloved wife, Linda, and their family on a remote, rustic, sheep farm in Scotland. He drank too much, dried out, got serious, and then commenced his solo career. First as just “McCartney” and then as “Paul McCartney and Wings.”

Paul survived rough patches, including brutal early reviews. One critic accused him of writing songs “for housewives and grandmothers.” Paul, a bit later, also endured an uncomfortable sojourn in Tokyo as a guest of Emperor Hirohito.

Nonetheless, Paul eventually returned to the top of the Billboard charts. This film intriguingly traces that long and winding road.Along the way, we hear excellent music in multiple contexts: informal/home settings, recording studios, and live performances — both in concert halls and on TV. “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Jet,” “Coming Up,” and “Live and Let Die” are among the featured favorites. So, of course, is the song that inspired this film’s title and marked Paul McCartney’s re-ascent to music’s commanding heights: “Band on the Run.”

​Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.

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