Product Description

DANNY FISHER, YOUNG DELINQUENT, FLUNKS OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL. HE QUITS HIS JOB AS A BUSBOY IN A NIGHTCLUB, AND ONE NIGHT HE GETS THE CHANCE TO PERFORM.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10542 in DVD
• Brand: PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2000-05-02
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 116 minutes

Amazon.com
Before his handlers convinced him to settle for the safety of a screen franchise, the young Elvis Presley harbored riskier dreams as an actor, not just a star. This 1958 drama, his fourth feature outing, hints at the underlying seriousness of that goal. Presley plays Danny Fisher, a New Orleans teenager struggling to graduate from high school while working in a sleazy French Quarter club to support his family. He's also characterized as a troubled youth with a dangerous temper and feelings of shame and resentment toward his meek, unemployed father (Dean Jagger). When Danny's gift for singing provides him with a potential career break (and the requisite excuse for Elvis's production numbers), his involvement with a ruthless gangster (Walter Matthau) and his sultry, alcoholic moll (Carolyn Jones) soon threatens both his future and his family.

That story line, with Danny torn between a budding romance with a good waitress (Dolores Hart) and the bad moll, Ronnie (Jones), proves as effective as it is predictable, hardly surprising given its source in an early Harold Robbins bestseller. But King Creole also boasts an impressive production pedigree (including the team behind no less a classic than Casablanca, producer Hal Wallis and director Michael Curtiz), and the supporting cast helps elicit one of Presley's most emotional performances. Jones in particular rises above her role's inherent clichés, her self-loathing and sexuality both palpable. Presley, still a few years away from the more sanitized image that would be integral to those franchise features, is young enough to be a credible teen, but more crucially he makes his rage and yearning largely convincing.

Ironically, the dramatic sparks prove all the more welcome in light of the largely forgettable music, which variously plunders Chicago blues ("Trouble," a knock-off of "Hoochie Coochie Man") and unconvincingly crosses Presley's Memphis rock with Crescent City jazz ("Dixieland Rock"), all to far less effect than Presley's two preceding movies, Jailhouse Rock and Loving You. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

"This is the one movie that makes sense"...enjoy!
"King Creole" what more can be said that hasn't been said already. When this picture was first shown at the Vilma Theater on Belair Rd. in Baltimore City there wasn't an empty seat in the house(the line outside was almost as long as it was for "The Ten Commandments" that premired a short time after King Creole). To start off I'm not sure how many folks know it but this was Elvis's favorite movie that he made. "Crawfish,CCrrraaawwwfffiiissshhhh-gees I got'em",boy if that doesn't make you feel like you are right on the Gulf, sharing plates with Cajuns and of course Creoles! Everything about this movie is first class: the Stars-Presly, Jagger,Mathouw,Jones and of course Vic Marrow as always the perfect Punk.The music is about the best Elvis ever did. I have had the original LP for about 40 years now and still play it for my grandchildren. Dixieland Rock,Trouble, Crawfish, King Creole this is some really good stuff and the fact that this music is backed up by a live Brass Blues Band makes it somewhat "Outstanding" not to mention that the back up vocals are done by no other then Gordon Stoker and the Jordonaires as they are right on stage with the King himself. If you want to see some real Hollywood History with a top notch cast (keep in mind Dean Jagger did this movie a year before he stared in "White Christmas" with Bing,Danny,Rosemary and Vera Ellen)and a first class plot with some great action and the REAL feel of being down in New Orleans (even if your not a real Cajun like Jimmie C Newman)get yourself a copy of this great show!
"Enjoy"

Elvis Presley's personal favorite film role
"King Creole" from 1958,(the same year Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S.Army),is a good drama with a few good musical numbers thrown in. Shot in glorious black&white and produced by Hal Wallis,who produced some of Mr. Presley's biggest hits("Loving You" from 1957,"Blue Hawaii" from 1961,"Girls!Girls! Girls!" from 1962) and directed by Michael Curtiz(the classic "Casablanca"),the story takes place in New Orleans and Elvis stars as Danny Fisher,a disillusioned high school drop out with designs on being a singer.Danny gets a job at the night club "King Creole". The picture features a fine supporting cast including the late,great Walter Matthau,very effective as a sleazy gangster,Carolyn Jones as the gangster's kept woman,Dean Jagger as Danny's father,Vic Morrow as a hoodlum and one of the gangster's henchman and Dolores Hart as Danny's girlfriend,(Ms. Hart after making several movies left acting and decided to become a nun in the mid '60's).Elvis's top ten hit single from this movie was "Hard Headed Woman".Also, "Trouble" was a well known number.Elvis Presley had said in interviews that of all the 30 odd pictures he had made Danny Fisher in "King Creole" was his personal favorite film role.And,Mr. Presley added that he hated most of the rest of the pictures he had made.

The King of Elvis flicks
Even the stuffy New York Times praised Elvis Presley's performance in "King Creole," and why not? Everything clicks in this adaptation of Harold Robbins' novel, "A Stone for Danny Fisher." For once, Elvis has a good script, a terrific supporting cast, a first class director, and a role worthy of an actor which he shows himself to be while also singing an album's worth of outstanding songs. He's not the surly creep of "Jailhouse Rock," nor is he the bloated beach boy of most of his 60's movies. He's a good kid whose boredom with school and disappointment with his homelife leads him to explore life on the wrong side of the tracks where he encounters a switchblade flinging Vic Morrow, a sleazy Walter Matthau, and a beautiful but been around Carolyn Jones. Along the way, he also performs brilliant, knockout musical numbers like "New Orleans," "Trouble," "Dixieland Rock," and the amusing "Lover Doll" (no "Old MacDonald's Farm" in this movie). It all adds up to the King's best film, one of the few in which he wore his crown with honor.