Kissin' Cousins

source: Kissin' Cousins

Hey its an Elvis movie you know it will be a bit hokey but also entertaining with songs and at least for the guys lots of eye candy. Elvis plays mirror image cousins that the Air Force lieutenant side only discovers when he goes to a Smokey Mountain mountain to try and set up a missile base. Yvonne Craig plays one of the hill clan's nubile daughter's. The daughters are interested in latching on to husbands. There is a valley clan that runs to only girls so when the Air Force shows up with nothing but men they go nuts. They ambush the men as they run about the mountain looking to save the head of the mountain clan. The men are very glad to cooperate with their ambushers. Of course all ends well with women finding husbands, the Air Force gets its lease

Elvis is not engaged here at all and who could blame him? by late '63 he surely expected to be making one serious picture after another. nonetheless, storyline happens to be very entertaining > the Military heads desperate to secure ol' Smoky Mountain for their missile site, while trying not to be swept away from the sexed up "kittyhawks", bring a smile. did not need "two Elvis(s)"....but whatever. they both sing real good. as one song suggests, "ON(C)E IS ENOUGH". title tune is particularly strong, shoulda-coulda been a smash...guess the competition from overseas at the time, like, his many imitators, cut down on his airplay. KISSIN' COUSINS/IT HURTS ME (not from film) was as good as many singles from the previous decade!

Army Lieutenant Elvis Presley is assigned to infiltrate the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to sweet-talk a hillbilly family into letting the government lease their mountain for a missile base; turns out Presley is distant kin-folk to the wrasslin' hick clan and bears a striking resemblance to the resident blonde hellraiser. Grubby-looking semi-musical manages to give us two Presleys for the price of one, but the script, direction, and production values are strictly third-rate. The bevy of squealing gals who chase Elvis through the woods have a much better time than most viewers will, seeing as how nobody cared enough to write a single decent song for the soundtrack--and E.P. himself walks through the picture looking non-plussed. Lovely Yvonne Craig, TV's Batgirl, is very frisky (until she goes all coy and demure) and has a fun scene proposing marriage to Elvis, but for a comedy this is awfully glum stuff. *1/2 from ****

It should come as no surprise to anyone that, before now, I was only familiar with the two best-regarded of Elvis Presley’s films, namely JAILHOUSE ROCK (1957) and FLAMING STAR (1960). However, since this year marks the 30th anniversary of his death, I made it a point to watch as many of his movies I could lay my hands on…a sort of “it’s now or never” type of situation, if you will! Actually, I had caught the beginning of this one on local TV several years ago, where it was shown as part of a mini Elvis retrospective. The “citizens vs. missile-base” plot line here is basically the rural version of Leo McCarey’s RALLY ‘ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS! (1958) but, as it turns out, the hillbilly antics get tiresome pretty quickly – especially whenever the man-chasing Kittyhawks turn up, which is too often for my tastes! The best gag, then, is when Captain Jack Albertson suddenly leaves the farmers’ dinner table – after “Ma” Glenda Farrell describes the stomach-turning contents of the “delicious” meal he has just partaken of, and “Pappy” Arthur O’Connell asks his soldier kin Elvis if something has come up, to which the latter matter-of-factly quips, “Not yet, but I think it might”! For what it’s worth, the songs are variable and unmemorable (except, perhaps, for the title tune) and even Farrell gets her own maudlin number! This film is perhaps best-known for offering a dual role for The King, one of whom is a brown-haired layabout, but this eventually leads to an unintentionally hilarious ending where the two characters share the screen doing a number, but every time one sings, the other conveniently turns his back to the camera and a longshot exposes Elvis’ double all-too-clearly!

Kissing Cousins is based on Presley playing two parts, one as an army officer and the other as a country hillbilly. Both characterisations fail. This was a dud script with lots of hillbilly nonsense with an excruciating dialogue. Presley doesn't have the ability to put across these dual roles and Albertson who can act, shows how wooden Presley in this daft film. Even the songs are frankly poor, except for the eponymous song, which introduces the film. Presley did have some acting ability but clearly His manager Parker didn't think they were good enough for a wider critical audience , otherwise he wouldn't have pushed Elvis into these crass films. Yes, they made lots of money at the box office, but essentially they were wasting his time and talent! I feel that Parker should take the blame since these films undermined Preley's reputation as an actor and singer.

Not only does Kissin' Cousins contain a bad script for Presley but this Presley outing contained a bad script for two Presley's. This movie was made in 17 days and it is obvious that the old saying is true, "put forth your best effort or it will be a flop." Presley plays two character's in this 1964 attempt, date's his own cousins and sings to everyone about being barefoot. Not a movie for academy award fans but Presley fans will enjoy. Presley couldn't have been proud of this one. If you decide to watch this movie just be careful not to fall in love with your cousins after you watch it. You may be a redneck, if you go to a family BBQ to find a date.

Elvis had to work overtime in this flick because he plays two parts. Did Marlon Brando ever play two parts? Did Montgomery Clift? Did James Dean? Nope, only Elvis could handle such a challenge. Actually I'm not even sure if Brando, Clift and Dean did double duty, but even if they did, there is no way they could be as good as Elvis. In the 1960s seeing double was hot in the television and motion picture business. Hayley Mills, Patty Duke and Bob Denver all took on duo roles in their respective projects. It only made sense to have Elvis do it too. He seems to have fun playing Jodie Tatum since he is liberated from having to play "the Elvis movie character" that he pretty much was forced to do in all his other movies. He's allowed to be a bit of a rascal. Elvis also gets to fight himself which is always fun to see an actor do. The biggest weakness of this film is that Yvonne Craig did not get to play two parts. I wouldn't have minded seeing two of her.

One of the worst Elvis movies I have ever seen. Had the producers taken the time to do it right it could have been a good movie, the idea with Elvis playing two characters was a good one, but the movie was very poorly done. Avoid this movie unless you're a real completionist.

Kissin' Cousins (1964) * 1/2 (out of 4) An Army man (Elvis) tries to talk his redneck cousin (Elvis) into letting the government put up a missile site on his property. As you can tell, the big story here is that Elvis plays a duel role and in fact he's the best thing about the movie but more on that later. The rest of the film is pretty damn lame from start to finish with horrible songs and horrible performance. With a title like this I was expecting a lot of Southern stereotypes but we don't even get any of that, which just makes the film all the more bland. The supporting players are all incredibly weak but I guess they knew how stupid the story was. The actual story never really makes any sense, which just makes the film a drag to go through. Back to Elvis, I thought he gave one of his better performances here in both roles. He spent time in the Army so he looked and acted very realistic in the scenes early on when "reporting" to higher officials. He was also a redneck so I thought he pulled the Southern thing off as well but what the hell was up with that blonde wig? The 'trick shots' used to hide The King's double are the only laughs in the film.