Spinning On the Track: Speedway

SPEEDWAY (US, 1968)

Original title: Speedway

Filming date:

June 26 - July 12, 1967

Release date:

June 12, 1968

Running time:

94min

Production company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Budget:

US$ 3 million

Box office:

US$ 2 million

Main cast:

Elvis Presley

Nancy Sinatra

Bill Bixby

Gale Gordon

Soundtrack:

"Speedway" (LP)
(May 1, 1968)
"Let Yourself Go" (single)
[b/w "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby"]
(May 25, 1968)

"Speedway" (CD/LP)
(FTD, 2016/2017)

Speedway is Elvis' twenty-seventh film. In it, Steve Grayson is a NASCAR driver who finds himself in the IRS's crosshairs when his agent defrauds stocks to pay for his gambling and must win a decisive race to keep his life and that of his friends from sinking. The script is loosely based on the gambling addiction of Elvis' own agent, Colonel Parker.

After his breakdown during the filming of "Clambake" (1967), Elvis once again found himself forced to act in a film he didn't like. The soundtrack was once again composed of silly and meaningless songs, in addition to being supported by a childish and repetitive script that placed him for the third time as a race car driver who needs to win to save the day and win the heart of the girl.

In the cast, Bill Bixby returns as Elvis' supporting character after his appearance in "Clambake". The King of Rock's character's love interest is played byNancy Sinatra. Like her father, Frank Sinatra, Nancy was a singer and actress, and at the time was on the charts with "Somethin' Stupid", a duet with Frank.Furthermore, the cast was made up of names little known in world cinema.

Filmed between June 26 and July 12, 1967, a month before "Stay Away, Joe", the film was released on June 12, 1968 (three months after "Joe...") and was a box office failure, grossing only US$ 2 million, one million less than its budget.

SOUNDTRACK

"Speedway" marks the last Elvis film to receive a soundtrack LP. Recorded in June 1967 in Hollywood, California, it features 8 songs heard in the film, plus "Suppose", the only song Elvis enjoyed recording, which ended up being left out of the production. To meet the minimum length of an LP, RCA inserted songs recorded in separate sessions between 1963 ("Western Union"), 1967 ("Mine") and early 1968 ("Goin' Home"). "There Ain't Nothing Like a Song", rejected song for the soundtrack of "Spinout" (1966), appears here as a duet between Elvis and Nancy Sinatra.

Shortly after the LP's release on May 1, 1968, RCA sold the single "Let Yourself Go" (with "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby" on the B-side) in the hope of increasing sales of the official album. The tactic did not work, as the single peaked at 72nd on the charts and the soundtrack LP peaked at 40th.

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SUPPORTING CAST

NANCY SINATRA

The daughter of Frank Sinatra, Nancy was born in New Jersey on June 8, 1940 and made her debut in 1960 on her father's television special, The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis, which celebrated Elvis' return to the US. She signed with Reprise Records in 1961 and went unnoticed until 1966, when Lee Hazlewood put it definitively on the market with "These Boots Are For Walkin'", which received three Grammy nominations, sold over a million copies, and was awarded a Gold record.

It didn't take long for Hollywood to take an interest, but she was only seen in eight productions, the last being "Speedway" with Elvis. By the mid-1970s, she had slowed down her career to focus on being a wife and mother. In 1995, at the age of 54, she posed for Playboy and caused controversy, with many people claiming that Frank was unhappy.

In 2004, she collaborated with singer Morrissey to record a version of her song "Let Me Kiss You", providing her with her first hit in over 30 years. Between 2006 and 2013, Nancy released a series of albums featuring rare versions of world-famous songs, taken from her own vault of recordings. The singer currently lives in the United States and is 85 years old (2025).

GALE GORDON

Born Charles Thomas Aldrich, Jr. on February 2, 1906, in New York City, his parents were Vaudeville performers on some radio shows, which gave him his first artistic opportunity at a young age. He was the first actor to play Flash Gordon in the radio series that ran from 1935 to 1942, when he went on to play supporting and even leading roles on TV and in films.

In 1951, Gordon and Lucille Ball starred in a play that became a sketch for the series "I Love Lucy" (1951-1974). The actor, replaced in the lead role by Desi Arnaz, Lucy's husband, played a recurring character in the series until its end in 1974. In 1968, after the closure of Desilu Studios and with uncertainty, Gordon had a supporting role in "Speedway".

During the following decades, until 1991, the actor only appeared in series and devoted himself to his writing career, which he began in 1940, and to his land ownership, owning 150 acres in Borrego Springs, where he built much of his home, art studio, and furniture himself.

Gordon passed away of lung cancer on June 30, 1995, at the age of 89. Virginia Curley, his wife of nearly 60 years, had passed at the same facility about a month earlier.