Comedy, Women and Music: Blue Hawaii

BLUE HAWAII (US, 1961)

Original title: Blue Hawaii

Filming date:

March 18 - April 13, 1961

Release date:

November 22, 1961

Running time:

102min

Production company:

Paramount Pictures

Budget:

US$ 3 million

Box office:

US$ 5 million

Main cast:

Elvis Presley

Joan Blackman

Angela Lansbury

Roland Winters

Soundtrack:

"Blue Hawaii" (LP)
(October 20, 1961)
"Can't Help Falling In Love" (single)
[b/w "Rock-A-Hula"]
(November 21, 1961)
"Blue Hawaii" (CD/LP)
(FTD, 2009/2023)

Blue Hawaii is Elvis' eighth film, the first of three set in Hawaii and the first of the 100% comedy musicals in which he would appear for the next 8 years.

Many historians of the singer claim that this was the undoubted basis for the formula of the following: strange locations, beautiful girls, silly plots and mediocre songs. Its resounding success convinced Parker that the path to easy money for his gambling was investing in idiotic musicals.

Promotional movie still with Elvis and his supporting cast

Hal Wallis and Elvis were certain that they would be able to bring in Juliet Prowse - with whom Elvis appeared in "G.I. Blues" (1960) and, for a change, tried to date, but the actress wanted many perks with which the studio did not agree. The way out was to call someone who was equal to Prowse, so Wallis sought Joan Blackman.

Elvis was very pleased with the choice and, of course, tried to have a relationship with the actress during filming. This relationship, which only he wanted to have, was commented by himself before singing "Hawaiian Wedding Song" on June 21, 1977: "And it was so real that it took me two years before I realized it was just a movie, you know, that I wasn't married to this chick."

Left to right: Joan Blackman, Elvis and Hilo Hattie on set

Filming lasted less than a month and had bizarre happenings - more so than the fact that Angela Lansbury, who was 35 at the time, played Elvis' mother, who was 26.

Elvis always asked Red West to demonstrate his karate skills and one of the fights ended up resulting in a broken finger for him. The singer, who spent more time in studios than anywhere else, was so pale at the time that Hal Wallis refused to film his scenes until he had a spray tan.

Elvis, Joan Blackman, Roland Winters and Angela Lansbury in Blue Hawaii

Worse, the young actresses were invited to Elvis' crazy parties and at one point could no longer show up on time and perform correctly, as they were so tired. These were parties that started an hour or two after the end of filming for the day and ended no more than three hours before filming began the next day.

This would clearly affect the quality of the film - which wasn't that great, to begin with - and Hal Wallis had to take matters into his own hands (the Colonel didn't care about anything other than timely receipts) to stop that from happening again.

Elvis and Joan Blackman at the last scene of Blue Hawaii

Released on November 22, 1961, Blue Hawaii was #2 at the box office among all films that year and grossed $5 million. Hal Kanter's screenplay was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Musical, and the production won a Laurel as the 4th Best Musical of 1961.

The famous Fern Grotto, where Blue Hawaii's last scenes were filmed

SOUNDTRACK

Recorded in 3 days in March 1961 on Radio Recorders, the LP released on October 20 of that year spent 20 weeks at #1 on the charts and another 19 weeks in the Top 10. Blue Hawaii was, in fact, the second most successful soundtrack album throughout the 1960s.

Of the film's 16 songs, only two - "Can't Help Falling In Love" and "Rock-A-Hula Baby" - were strategically released as singles the day before the film opened in theaters.

The soundtrack has been periodically re-released over the years, but its recording sessions only started to appear on the market with FTD's double CD and LP in 2009. The complete sessions were also officially released by the label in 2023.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SUPPORTING CAST

JOAN BLACKMAN

Born May 17, 1938 in San Francisco, California, Joan appeared on TV for the first time in 1957 and two years later made her film debut, but it wasn't until 1961 that her big break came with "Blue Hawaii". The following year, she would appear again with Elvis in "Kid Galahad".

Between 1963 and 1973, Blackman worked in several series such as "I Spy", "Gunsmoke", "Perry Mason" and "Bonanza", also having a recurring role in the soap opera "Peyton Place" (1964 - 1969). Her return to film came in 1974 with "Macon County Line", but she would return to TV between the following year and 1990, when she retired.

Currently (as of 2023), the actress lives in California and is 85 years old.

ANGELA LANSBURY

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925 in London, England, and made her film debut in 1944. Her career is practically limited to performances on Broadway and TV, with small and quick appearances in the cinema, as in "Blue Hawaii" , where she - at age 35 - played Elvis' mother, who was 26 at the time.

His biggest cinematographic works were "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) and "The Company of Wolves" (1984). In 2005 she acted in "Nanny McPhee" and in 2011 in "Mr. Popper's Penguins".

The actress dedicated herself to the theater, her greatest passion, in her last years. Her last work was a cameo in the movie "Glass Onion - A Knives Out Mystery" (2022). Angela passed away on October 11, 2022, aged 96.

ROLAND WINTERS

Born November 22, 1904 in Boston, Massachusetts, Roland Winternitz worked in Broadway shows in the 1920s and was an announcer on WNAC radio between 1931 and 1940. In 1941 Winters appeared as an extra in "Citizen Kane", but continued to intersperse his radio work with small film roles until 1947.

Between 1948 and 1959 he played the famous detective Charlie Chan in a series of films and television episodes. With the end of the series, Winters looked for cinema again and ended up appearing alongside Elvis in 1961, in "Blue Hawaii", and in 1962, in "Follow That Dream". The actor worked in series and films until 1982.

Roland Winter died of a heart attack on October 22, 1989, aged 84, at his nursing home in Englewood, New Jersey.

HOWARD MCNEAR

Howard Terbell McNear was born on January 27, 1905 in Los Angeles, California, and worked in theater throughout the 1930s. In the 1940s he was part of the cast of a radio program where he began to interpret a character that was seen in several films with Elvis: the chatty, uninformed and clumsy or inconvenient gentleman.

This same character was used in the creation of Floyd Lawson, a chatty barber played by him in the series "Gunsmoke" (1952 - 1971) and who became so classic to the point of being a special guest in several programs and series in the 1960s, being "The Andy Griffith Show" (1960 - 1968) the greatest example.

McNear suffered a heart attack in 1965 that left him unable to walk but did not interfere with his voice. The actor died on January 3, 1969, on the eve of his 64th birthday, due to pneumonia caused by the heart attack.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------