New Year's Holidays!
A blessed time for relaxation, laziness and entertainment.
The best time to remember the old Hollywood films, or rather, about one of them - Loving You, released on the screens on July 9, 1957.
This is almost the autobiography of early Elvis Presley, somewhat smoothed and ennobled, but without losing anything from it.
Elvis's parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley, also starred there (as spectators).
Today it is impossible to understand even close what was happening in the Elvis universe, especially in the days of early cinema.
I think that such an intensity of passions is hardly possible now, the more pleasant and interesting it is to immerse yourself in the memories of eyewitnesses.
Natalie Wood.
A brilliant actress with Russian roots (Natalya Nikolaevna Zakharenko), who spoke both English and Russian equally well all her life.
In 56, she is only 18 and she is the chosen one of Elvis (then it really could have come to a wedding).
The most beautiful, incredibly colorful couple.
Look together - it is impossible to take your eyes off.
Elvis is at the peak of popularity in music, but his first film was also quite successful - Love me tender won the hearts of Americans (and not only girls).
Now Elvis begins filming a new tape - Loving You, with a full soundtrack and excellent recommendations from the masters of cinema.
Natalie flies to Elvis in Memphis, and this is where the fun begins.
She, accustomed to fame since childhood, from the age of 11, earning a thousand dollars a week and actually providing for her family, suddenly finds herself in a strange, absolutely illusory world where no laws of physics and other exact sciences operate - after all, this is the world of Elvis.
Wood feels at least like Alice falling down a rabbit hole.
“From the minute I got off the plane, and until the very departure, I could not get rid of the feeling that could be expressed in one phrase:“ The circus has arrived in the city! ”.
Some unthinkable typhoon revolved around Elvis, and you, hugging the King, were in the very epicenter of this typhoon and could not do anything about it - it was beyond your abilities.
A whole crowd of people stood at his house day and night.
Someone was selling hot dogs and ice cream straight from the vans.
When Elvis decided to ride a motorcycle he bought in the morning and we drove out into the street, a whole motorcade immediately followed us.
I felt like a guest star leading a parade at the Rose Bowl!
Elvis was infinitely nice and kind to everyone, signed autographs, smiled and thanked, thanked! .. "
You should have known Elvis at least a little.
Before meeting him.
Natalie decided that this was too much for her.
And flew away to my mother.
Who knows, maybe it was for the best.
In a state of incredible creative upsurge, Elvis starred in Loving You in one breath, as if reliving both his first days on stage and the sudden rise of his career.
In general, in those days he felt good alone.
The only people he really missed were his parents.
He was really looking forward to the arrival of Gladys and Vernon on the set.
And three weeks after they began, everything happened, and a whole delegation arrived from Memphis, some friends of the family arrived with their parents.
There were some curiosities.
On the day of his arrival, Vernon approached the studio security guard and said: “Officer!
Good afternoon!
What do you say?
How do we get inside?
Such a thing - our guy is someone who works here.
Maybe you know him, he is ours, from the South, a good, well-mannered boy. "
The officer was completely embarrassed, but, having learned who it was about, he hurried to immediately escort the guests to the trailer of the "good, well-mannered boy."
Elvis felt in seventh heaven with happiness.
He constantly dragged Gladys and his father around the studio, introduced everyone, talked about local rules and customs and at every opportunity he repeated that he did not need to take acting lessons at all, it is enough that he constantly watches films with Marlon Brando and thoroughly studied all the techniques and the tragic fate of poor James Dean.
Elvis was absolutely happy.
We see it today in every shot of a very real one, sparkling with joy and enthusiasm Loving You.
Yes, perhaps the tape was conceived as a drama.
But it turned out ...
You need to know Elvis a little.
Gladys, very worried about her son, somehow suddenly and immediately calmed down.
Now she liked everything.
And even the rhythm of life in which she found herself.
Perhaps in a tiny house in Tupelo, while Elvis was growing up, she secretly dreamed that one day her life would turn into a fabulous masquerade, an extravaganza.
Who knows...
Gladys was also absolutely happy.
Unlike Natalie Wood, she was impressed that "The circus has come to town."
And to celebrate, she got two poodles - Pierre and Duke.
One day, the parents were on the set for a particularly long time, and Hal Kanter, the director of the film, came up with the idea to shoot them on film.
Everything turned out by itself, and the next day Elvis showed the finished episodes to his mother, who sighed and sighed that she looked "somewhat plump and tired."
However, the deed was done - Elvis and Kanter convinced Gladys and Vernon to appear as viewers.
In one of the scenes, at the very end, where Elvis jumps into the hall and starts dancing in the aisle, you will see Gladys - very real, with incredible love and warmth looking at her son.
She applauds him.
She is proud of him.
All this gives the tape a certain effect of a strange, parallel reality, in which there are no losses, no death, but only the joy of life and triumph.
The film's soundtrack is solid, solid.
It's streaming rock and roll like a state of mind.
And these are amazingly piercing, soft and enveloping lyrics by Elvis.
South night.
Southern rock.
The songs Mean Woman Blues, Got A Lot O 'Livin' To Do, Loving You have long become standards.
But they didn't get bronze.
This is the strength of rock and roll - he is forever young, even if his lean grandfathers play in old-fashioned velvet jackets.
This is the style.
This is his aesthetics.
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Colored, bright and juicy, as if polished by time and the spectator's eye, Loving You is an example of over-luck, the happiest coincidence of circumstances, a temporary puncture from “there” into eternity.
Everyone is young.
Happy.
Everything ends on time and well.
And Elvis is dark-haired (from this movie forever) and as beautiful as a Greek god.
However, like his fantastically beautiful tape partner, Dolores Hart.
No matter how much I revise the tape, after the final credits, I never leave the feeling of a lasting moment, that everything continues to be in the same, its own dimension and on its own, special rock wave.
I hope you will use my recommendations and look at one of the New Year's evenings Loving You - a wonderful remedy for the blues and sorrows of our world.
Happy Holidays!
Light and happiness to you!
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.