It Happened At the World's Fair



You know what? It's time to embrace the future, that's why I'm reviewing  It Happened at the World's Fair. For fans of Elvis and the genre, this is yet another entry in Presley's Big Bland American series. This blockbuster has Elvis as Mike Edwards, a crop duster whose aspirations land him on route to Seattle and the World's Fair. Elvis and his goofy friend (this time Gary Lockwood) hitched a ride with an Asian man. This is where Elvis met his cutest co-star ever, Sue Ling, a 7 year old little girl.


         


For some reason, the girl's uncle lets his niece go off with a 27 year old man. That said, the two had crackling chemistry, leading Elvis to scale new heights of strategic eyebrow raising and befuddled looks.


As with most Elvis movies, there's a love interest. The main one here is a nurse, played by Joan O' Brien. With that child out of the way, it was nice to see those two falling in love with Seattle landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Alamo and the Space Needle as a backdrop. Guess what? A young Kurt Russell appears as a smart alack kid. Jeff Bridges went to see this movie and enjoyed himself immensely.


After the "getting to know you shenanigans", it was time to get back to this non-existent, silly ass.script. After a staying a spell with Uncle Elvis, the little girl eventually went back home. Mike put in his application to NASA. Got to tell you, that visual was a noggin rocker. The last scene has Elvis and his love interest singing "Happy Ending" joined by a marching band.

I Want to Play This On My Record Machine: While It Happened at the World's Fair is acknowledged as a pleasant if  pointless movie, the music here is quite good. The soundtrack finds Elvis in great voice and has "ok" songs like "I'm Falling In Love Tonight" and "One Broken Heart For Sale." They both make me cry!

Sometimes Letterbox Helps: Not to tale tales out of school but I think my letterbox version actually helped with how Elvis looked during this era.  I remember seeing this on TV and noticing how chunky Elvis was. He wasn't Haystacks Calhoun, he wasn't ready for the Biggest Loser or anything, but he seemed like he could stand to lose 5 or 30 pounds. Flash up to this WB (this was originally a MGM film) DVD release, everything is letterboxed up, the picture is seems stretched and Elvis is svelte.

Film: **

Soundtrack ***

Ballad in Blue/A Man Called Adam

I had these originally planned for February 31st. I found these two movies on the side of the road dis'guarded and stuff. Here's a review of what I saw and how it changed me...

Ballad In Blue- According to the film, simply being Ray Charles is an arduous task for him. His body language and delivery were stilted, the plot was inane, clearly being Ray Charles was beyond his wheelhouse. It’s a darned shame.

Ray was way over in England at a school for the blind when he met up with a little blind boy. Seemingly this was an accident (Ray had nothing to do with it) and there was also a mother in the mix too. It’s clear that this wasn’t an American production. Ray and his cohort were allowed to talk about how hot the mother of the kid was. You couldn’t have that kind of chat in America, not at that time.


Of course this is cinematic if not seraphic version of Brother Ray. There’s no horseplay, none of that foul-mouth/temper, him being hooked on "heron" and his “fooling around” with his Raelettes. In short this wasn’t Ray Charles at all. Oh yeah, I think the kid actually regained his sight, but I fell to sleep on this. This movie also featured boring subplot about the blind fella’s dad who was a music man too. He ended up playing and writing for Ray Charles's band. Yeah right!

**1/2


A Man Called Adam: Sammy Davis Jr- Here’s something you haven’t seen before: A tortured jazz musician. Sammy Davis Jr played Adam Johnson, an apparently famous trumpet player who abused everyone around him and is haunted by a secret, a big secret. Of course this and his talent gave Davis Jr’s Adam carte blanche to be an asshole to the whole world.

This had a stellar supporting cast featuring Ossie Davis, Cicely Tyson and (guess who) Louis Armstrong as Stout Wilderbee, Uncle Ned…Willie "Sweet Daddy" Ferguson.  In Armstrong’s character we see the light hearted person that Adam’s Hangup’s would never allow him to be. Heavy sigh. Also in this movie we have a clearly bloated Peter Lawford as a dirty businessman Manny. Manny? Really?
You know what? Sammy David Jr. could actually act. There were times when you forgot he was such a mega star and not his loathsome hipster. I was taken with the story between Tyson and Sammy although her civil rights struggle was treated like a youthful passing fancy (why God why.) If anything, it was this part of the movie that showed what a tempestuous, prickish musician Adam was. Luckily Cicely never had to deal with anything like that in her real life (hoo hah hoo hah.) Guess who had a role in this movie? Frank Sinatra Jr. I bet Uncle Sammy told him some killer stories on the set. Mel Torme also shows up in a cameo that's a real gas!

Rating ***

Part 2: Was this in color or in black and white? It's all a blur. Believe it or not, A Man Called Adam also produced a soundtrack. It went to No 1. on the charts and it's still there!

Episode Review: Beverly Hills 90210: Injustice For All

I thought my work was done. My staff let me back out of the driveaway in my 1974 Torino knowing I still had tapes to watch and things to do. The people responsible have been "dealt with." When I reviewed "Up in Flames" I forgot there was a companion piece to that classic. "Injustice For All" is like Goat's Head Soup to "Flames" "Exile On Main Street."

Things we lost after the fire...Kelly was convalescing at the beachhouse. Little David Silvers was there so was her super-model mom Jackie. The emotional damage was extensive, the storyline dragged out like so much taffy. In fact, there was such a lack of stories the writers had to play out the clock and give Andrea Zuckerman and her asshead husband a few scenes. Did you know that they were going to spin-off those two for their own show. It was going to be called Valerie's Family.



 After the accident in question, the long arm of the law was coming down on Steve Sanders. You know his wheels were turning, he was going to slither out of this one way or the other. The one thing Steve couldn't escape this time was reality of what happened. If you think Kelly Taylor: The 5'3 Model of the Year looked bad, you should have seen the girl who got hurt with her. Yikes! That was some chill-inducing makeup.

Still Kelly also had emotional problems left over from the night. She and Brandon weren't talking for a variety of reasons, all corny it seems. Brandon had to escape and go crying to his big-brother Dylan. Brandon couldn't even leave him alone in rehabs! Brandon was asking for Dylan's Zen advice on subjects ranging from Kelly, Jennie Garth, Emily. What the hell did Dylan know? Even the sight of a Rolling Stones cartoon tongue shook him all up inside.

Our friend Emily made an appearance (another one!) Although Emily looked like a deranged flapper in the earlier episode, she looked really cute in this one. I don't know what Brandon was thinking but I would have dropped crying ass Kelly like a sack of hot taters and went to live with Emily for ever ever.

This is all clean-up work, Ian Ziering had to do most of the heavy lifting in this episode. He had a scene with C.C. Capwell/Rush Sanders and had to beat up Griffin Stone. Most demoralizingly, Steve had to again reheat the beans of his '65 Love Affair with Kelly Taylor. Did they have no shame? As part of his plea bargin, Steve was sentenced to spend some time with boring ol' Jesse Vasquez. Jessie had his fill of Rush's boy's inferal whining and gave him the dressing down on the decade. I love that scene!

The Last Scene: For some reason, Dylan got the last scene here. Valerie and Brenda's mom (WTF?) gussied up Dylan's adobe hut while he was in rehab. Nat was there too, isn't he a dear? Anyway Dylan got a letter that stated that his ratty little sister was in "trouble." Oh goodness. Will I watch tomorrow? No....

Rating ***

Episode Review: Beverly Hills 90210: Up in Flames (1994)

Oh hi. I consider myself lucky to have stumbled on this show in the middle of the afternoon. It was the days of miracle and wonder, this is a long distance call. Beverly Hills 90210 had rebounded (a bit) after showing Shannen Doherty das boot. In a move straight out of the Rick Zito/Billy Burnette/Fleetwood Mac playbook, Doherty was in effect replaced by Kathleen Robertson and Kelly Kapowski. Most of the gang appeared in this gripping episode entitled "Up in Flames."  

College life seemed to be treating the kids well. By this point they bid adieu to dusty ol' John Sears and moved into the future with Casper Van Dien as Griffin Stone. Wow, that's a mid '90s name isn't it?  Also Donna was seeing some scratchy voiced pumpkin salesman named Ray Pruitt. This episode dealt with Steve Sanders's  entrepreneurial spirit via a run-down old house. He and Van Diem decided to have a House Party. The house (which belonged to Gig Young) was the site of a fabulous party. The problem? The electrical systems. The caterer warned Casper Van Diem about this problem and he didn't want to hear about it. Diem fool!

I have to say the party scenes were a joy to watch. It was a total gas seeing the kids dance to hits of the day from Jeremy Jordan, Little Richard, and Jade's "Everyday of the Week." While the old house was giving out of juice and letting off sparks, an absent and no-dancing Brandon Walsh had a compelling side story.

While his girlfriend was ready to burn to a crisp, Brandon was having old home week with Emily Valentine. What? Her! This is the episode after the two met up in old San Franciskey. And yep, this is the episode where Emily came back into Brandon's life with the silliest haircut ever. Emily in fact wanted to resume their relationship, Brandon was dating and having sex with Kelly Taylor. Life's funny. Did Emily expect him to pine for her, playing the Mills Brothers and hoping she'd call on his answer phone? I think not!

The gripping last scenes of this found aforementioned Kelly Taylor trapped in the bathroom (batroom) with this girl who was flirting with her. Folks were filing out as the smoke n' fire came tumbling down. David and Claudia, Rachael, Clare made it out. Steve and Cynthia, Kelly, Valerie put their clothes back on and hit the steps post-haste. Errbody was wondering about Kelly--she was still up in that house! Steve Sanders started to cry--and at the same time, Brandon was kissing Emily!

Episode Review ****

Breakdown: No doubt the show had past its peak, but during this season, the show did get a bump from sharper writing and often great production values. Not surprisingly the resolution of this plot twist helped to make the show tedious again and the show got silly again in short order.