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Viva El Amor

By Rohan Raj | January 8, 2009

Revolving doors and Deja Vu. One sings of love….one sings of blues. It’s my birthday, and it’s Elvis’s too.  Haha….that rhymed.

I decided to revisit the works of Elvis Presley in light of his birthday. One work in particular: Viva Las Vegas.

Viva Las Vegas (1964) is a romantic musical starring Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret. It goes like this you see….Lucky Jackson (Elvis Presley) goes to Las Vegas to participate in the city’s first annual Grand Prix. The predicament is that Lucky needs a new engine for his race car in order to compete. Lucky makes the money for the engine the only appropriate way in Vegas, by winning it. After winning the lump sum at the tables, Lucky prepares to go to Los Angeles to buy the engine.

That’s when he meets Rusty Martin (played by Ann-Margret), in need of help with her car. Believing Lucky to be a mechanic, Rusty asks Lucky to aid her. Lucky becomes infatuated with Rusty and tries to convince her engine is completely haywire and that she cannot go anywhere for days. Just then, one of Lucky’s rivals in the Grand Prix, Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova), enters the picture to fix Rusty’s engine and send her on her way.

Lucky looks for Rusty all night, scouring all the burlesque shows in Vegas. He comes into encounter with hundreds of women, but not finding his amor. At the clubs he attends, he sees other couples absorbed in each other. He sings of his loneliness and his longing for the like.

The next day, just as Lucky has given up on finding Rusty and is preparing to leave for Los Angeles, he sees her at the pool of his hotel. He discovers she is the swimming instructor and pool manager at the Flamingo Hotel. Lucky goes to the pool and sings Rusty a song to gain her love, but she does not bend to his will. Instead of driving her into his pond of passion, he is driven by her into the pool of humiliation. Falling into the pool, he loses the money that he was going to buy the engine with.  When he discovers he has lost the money, he is obligated to work as a waiter at the hotel to pay off his bill and save up for the engine. This gives Lucky a chance to spend time with Rusty. After trying several times to win her affection, Rusty concedes.

Lucky and Rusty spend much time together and become yin-yang. They engage in both song and quarrel through their relationship, but ultimately always returning to each other for ascension. Amidst their relations, Lucky and Rusty enter a talent contest individually at the Flamingo Hotel. After showcasing a dazzling song and dance, both climactically tie for 1st place. Lucky wins the tie-breaker by chance in a coin flip. The song that Lucky sings in the contest is the renown “Viva Las Vegas”.

As time flies by, Lucky realizes the window of opportunity to attain the money for his engine is dwindling. Just when he begins to accept that his chances of racing in the Grand Prix have vacated, one of Lucky’s friends overcomes the situation.  Shorty, Lucky’s friend and car mechanic, seeks Mr. Martin (Rusty’s father) to borrow money to pay for the engine. Lucky purchases the engine and is able to assemble it just in time for the race.

The race is rather suspenseful, considering the time period in which it was shot. The majority of the shots focused on the tension between Lucky and his rival, Count Elmo Mancini. The car spin-outs and crashes were amusing, which included the crash of the Count’s car near the end of the race. And of course, Lucky (Elvis) wins the race. The movie concludes with Lucky and Rusty getting married.

While the storyline of Viva Las Vegas was not at all consistent, I don’t think I would be wrong in assuming that a captivating story was not the objective of the film.The film intended to encapsulate Elvis Presley, showcasing his many talents. Conclusively, I enjoyed the film and can understand why he remains topical today, 31 years after his death.

Watching Viva Las Vegas was a nice way of remembering Elvis Presley….

Elvis is a legendary figure that will not soon be forgotten. His mark on the music and film industry has been one of considerable proportion. I’m sure on this day, “The King”, the “idiot savant”, whatever you may call him, is smiling down on his residual reign.

(Cool and unusual note: Another notable film and one of my childhood favorites, Rock-A-Doodle, tells the story of a singing rooster named Chanticleer, a discernible parody of Elvis Presley.)

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