With the studio album canceled, the Fun in Acapulco LP was brought back to life, featuring eleven songs recorded for the movie plus two bonus songs from the May session. There was no time for Elvis to think about the business side of things, however (not that ever tried to), as he was soon back to work on another movie and soundtrack, this time for Viva Las Vegas.
The movie was still almost a full year away, and would be a Blue Hawaii-like hit upon release, but the music was a different story. Today the title track is one of the most recognizable of Elvis’s catalog, but at the time it was considered another nonsense track no different from “Follow that Dream” or “Girls Girls Girls.”
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A total of twelve songs were recorded, plus a few alternate versions, enough for a full-length album, but nothing was strong enough to warrant it, and Parker was still milking the dying EP market for all the life it had left, so many of the songs recorded ended up cut (from the movie, the album, and sometimes both).
Though nothing was loved at the time, a few songs—beyond the title track—have found a second life and are worthy of note. One of the notes Parker sent to the songwriters was to bring a “Ray Charles” like feel to their tracks. Few songs managed to replicate that particular sound, so an actual Ray Charles song was recorded instead: “What’d I Say.” It failed to measure up to the original, however. A pair of duets with movie co-star Ann-Margret (with whom Elvis began a love affair that went beyond the movie set) were the real highlights of the album; a fun blues number “You’re the Boss” was recorded but was ordered cut from the movie (by Tom Parker) and was also left off the EP. It went unreleased until 1991. Another duet, a ballad called “Today, Tomorrow and Forever” was recorded twice, with one version featuring only Presley’s vocals, though the duet version is the superior take. The duet version was cut (again, due to Parker’s meddling) and instead the movie only features Elvis, though decades later fans would splice in Ann-Margret’s removed part onto film footage, showing how it might have sounded.
Parker was angry during the filming of the movie because word came back to him (from some of Elvis’s hangers-on) that the movie’s director, George Sidney (who had just helped Ann-Margret become a superstar in Bye Bye Birdie) was favoring Presley’s female co-star over the man at the top of the billing. He wasn’t, of course, and the final product bears that out. Still, Parker was angry but had little influence over the production of the movie to do anything about it (Sidney was both director and producer, and MGM was certainly happy to ride Ann-Margret’s stardom). As a result, Parker’s only means of retaliation was via the EP soundtrack. Cutting two of the duets did little to diminish Ann-Margret in the eyes of fans, however; the movie performed much better than the soundtrack did; it ended up selling less than 300,000 copies. Parker’s tantrum only managed to deprive Elvis’s fans of good music, but no one ever accused Tom Parker about putting good music first.
Viva Las Vegas (the movie and the album) was not set for release until May the following year. Elvis had a few weeks off, after wrapping, before work was to begin on his final film shoot of the year. In the meantime, Elvis and Ann-Margret continued their romance, albeit in secret. Priscilla Wagner, whom Presley had fallen for while stationed in Germany, was now living in Memphis at Elvis’s request. The two had kept in touch over the phone after Presley returned to the states in 1960, but they did not see each other until a two-week visit by Priscilla in 1962. After that, Elvis asked her parents if she could move to Memphis; they initially rejected the idea (she was only eighteen, a decade younger than Elvis), but agreed when he insisted that she would live with his father and step-mother, attend an all-girls Catholic school, and eventually be his wife. Months after moving to the city, Priscilla moved out of Elvis’s parent’s house and into Graceland itself (where she’d been spending all of her free time anyway), a move which upset her parents until he reiterated his desire to marry their daughter.
When tabloids reported on Presley’s relationship with Ann-Margret, Priscilla confronted Elvis, but he denied any wrong-doing and insisted that they were just friends. Truth be told, the two of them had been nearly-inseparable whenever Elvis was in Hollywood (where Priscilla did not follow), and other flings with other co-stars followed after. All the while Elvis maintained faithfulness, an act he kept up to the bitter end of their relationship in 1972.
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The less said about Kissin Cousins, the better.
Without question, the movie was the weakest Elvis had made thus far. Not only was the script an embarrassment, but the production values were B-movie quality. Say what you want about Elvis’s movies, they almost always at least looked good. New Orleans, Hawaii, Mexico, Las Vegas: Elvis’s movies were travelogues. They were around-the-world adventures, led by one of the most popular entertainers in the world. It was a recipe for success that Parker leaned on as much as possible. Kissin Cousins, however, was trash. Due to Viva Las Vegas going over budget (which meant diminished profits for Parker), Kissin Cousins was produced on a sub-million dollar budget, filmed in only a month, and whose soundtrack was recorded in Nashville (as opposed to previous soundtracks which were handled at Radio Recorders, in Hollywood).
The setting for the movie was also local; Elvis played dual parts—look-alike cousins—from the state of Tennessee. One was a hillbilly and the other a GI returning from service (a trope now worn to exhaustion). How to tell the twins apart, you ask? Well, the hillbilly had blonde hair, you see, and the GI had dark hair. And even though Elvis naturally had sandy-colored hair (he dyed it black), he actually wore a garish wig instead of just using his natural color. And even though the soundtrack was recorded in Nashville (to save money, Parker insisted), the band ended up having to fly to Hollywood anyway to lay down some backing tracks for Elvis to overdub. And even though the movie was set in Tennessee, where Presley was living, the film was shot on the Hollywood backlot. Even the title is odd: Elvis plays a pair of cousins, and the title of the movie is “Kissin” Cousins. Without seeing the picture, would that not give the wrong impression? Nothing about this movie makes any sense.
Naturally, it was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for “Best Written Musical.”
Ten songs were recorded in September for the soundtrack, including two different versions of the title theme, neither of which deserve any attention, except to mock them: The song “Kissin Cousins Number 2” is the first song on the album, whereas the other version, simply titled “Kissin Cousins” closes the album. No, it doesn’t make any sense to me either. Other songs like “There’s Gold in Them Mountains” and “Barefoot Ballad” are best left forgotten. The best song recorded for the movie is “Tender Feeling,” a plodding ballad with what sounds like a half-hearted performance (at best) by Elvis.
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Two more tracks from the “lost album” were added, as they were on Fun in Acapulco, to round out the album to the industry-standard twelve songs. The clash of styles and energy is easily noticeable, but by this point in his career, no one handling Elvis was caring about consistency. 1963 ended with dozens of songs recorded but few that etched themselves in history. As the calendar turned over to 1964, Elvis’s prospects did not shine any brighter.
