LogFAQs > #932899057

34. Jailhouse Rock (1957)

JONA: 18
Genny: 23
Johnbobb: 25
Inviso: 27
Scarlet: 30
Karo: 33
KBM: 35

JONA - This movie is all about Elvis and his character. He does a great job at showing the characters attitude. He also has some good chemistry with Peggy. Theres not much about this movie to write home about but its just kinda enjoyable.
Favorite Song: Jailhouse Rock

Genny - While Mr. Presley is undeniably charismatic and handsome on the screen there is something that leaves me cold about his character when he's not singing and/or dancing. Perhaps it's that an event that should have drastically affected his life ends up merely mildly inconveniencing him because Vince is charismatic and handsome, particularly when he's singing and/or dancing. Or perhaps it's because he blows off his relationships with the friends that stuck by him in the tougher times but he's forgiven because... he's charismatic and handsome, particularly when he's singing and/or dancing.

Johnbobb - Jailhouse Rock is pretty good. It doesn't rewrite any formulas or do much explicitly new, but it's a fairly solid film with an interesting lead. I can appareciate that instead of playing up Presley's character as the perfect prettyboy, it always has him getting in his own way, and doesn't hesitate to make him look like an asshole. Ultimately I dont feel like theres a whole lot I can say about it though. For the most part, it was what I expected it to be.
Favorite song: Jailhouse Rock

Inviso - While I respect this film for having a coherent plot (namely the rise of a young musician to a position of prominence), Ive gotta sayElvis Pressleys character is just a detestable asshole in this film. You would think, if youre gonna have the main character be a guy who killed a guy in a bar fight, you would go out of your way to make him more sympathetic. But aside from getting played by the studio on his initial attempt at a record, pretty much everything Elvis does goes smoothly, yet he just becomes more and more of a jackass as time goes on. Even when hes in prison, he turns down offers of help to be a stubborn dickwad. And this all culminates in his getting his ass beat with like, five minutes left in the movie, having the fastest turnaround on his bad behavior imaginable, and everyone lives happily ever after. After a whole movie of him being a douche. Yeah, this just didnt work for me. It didnt even have an exciting pace to keep me interested. It was justbland.

Scarlet - Its the Shawshank Redemption of Elvis Presley movies.
Best Song: (Ironically enough) Jailhouse Rock

Karo - So this delinquent gets thrown in the clink for beating a man to death, and after a few awkward singing lessons from an old cowboy, becomes a rock superstar. Yes, seriously.
There are so many problems here it is hard to know where to begin. Elvis can't act to save his life, his character is an obnoxious asshole, and even his singing is mostly missing the mojo you'd expect.
The writers constantly want us to feel empathy for this twit and pull for him just because he is Elvis and he's such a cool bad boy and can do no wrong and oh my god please stop.
This fucker needs a lot more than a punch in the throat to set him right. He also needs to be at punched in the nose, the balls, the teeth, and maybe have his legs run over with a cement mixer a few times for good measure.
It just is a dull, unoriginal piece of crap that seems to be willed into being just to make money off the face of a music superstar, and intended solely for an audience of horny teenage girls who want to fuck Elvis Presley.
He may be nothing but a hounddog, but this pooch needs to be taken out back behind the barn and put out of its misery. Or at least out of everyone else's misery.

Score: 26/100

KBM - Why I Chose It: Well, for one thing, there were no Elvis Presley star vehicles on the list last time, which were such a huge staple of the late-'50s and '60s. I chose Jailhouse Rock, one of his earliest movies, because it is probably the most well-remembered of the bunch, thanks in large part to the iconic Jailhouse Rock song-and-dance number. It was added to the National Film Regristry in 2004.

My Thoughts: This was painful to watch. While self-consciously attempting to cash in on Elvis' (at the time) controversial, bad-boy persona, it does so behind such a thick veneer of 1950's Hollywood schmaltz that it's just impossible to take seriously. Beyond that, Elvis was just... not a good actor. Like, at all. His performance in this is at times so bad that it's laughable, and though I've definitely seen plenty of media where the lead character is an unlikable asshole, you need an actor with at least some screen presence to carry that kind of thing off, and Elvis absolutely fails to do so here. Plus, outside of the title number, the direction and cinematography are so flat and uninspired that it does nothing at all to help matters, making the rest of the film feel even more lifeless by comparison to the title song. Tragically, the only person I thought did a halfway decent acting job in the movie, leading lady Judy Tyler, died along with her husband in a car crash days after the end of production, prompting a grief-stricken Elvis to skip the premiere. Though there are movies up to 25 years older than this on the list, I would go so far as to say that this is the most dated-feeling movie on the entire list.

Favorite Song: Jailhouse Rock