For these people, a better movie should have been made for the rest, a worse movie would have done. 'Roger Ebert loved movies.' In Memoriam 1942-2013. But ultimately, it’s a fantasia of fame, which increasingly becomes a hellscape. It touches on a series of actual, factual events as a road map, from her movies to her marriages. The star names of Newman and Woodward artificially enlarge the audience for a movie of this sort people come specifically to see them. It’s as much a biopic of the film star as Elvis is a biopic of Elvis Presley. "Winning" would have done very nicely with Robert Wagner promoted to the lead role, Suzanne Pleshette in the Woodward role, and maybe Frankie Avalon as the spoiler. Even then I knew Julie London had a better voice (and. Although I belong to the correct generation, having arrived at age 13 simultaneously with the release of 'Heartbreak Hotel,' I never went to a single Presley movie and I never, not even once, not even for 'Hound Dog,' bought a single Presley record. We actually wonder if Paul Newman, himself, as Paul Newman, will win the race and get the girl.Īll of this isn't to say that "Winning" shouldn't have been made, only that talent like Newman's and Miss Woodward's shouldn't have been wasted on it. Let me confess at once that I have no credentials for reviewing a movie by Elvis Presley. Newman by now has transcended the stature of the roles he plays. So "Winning" isn't the Stirling Moss Story. These days Hollywood is a little cannier and realizes you can make the same movie about a prototype and save on royalties. You can even predict the psychological twists in this basic plot by now they're clichés, too, in the 1950s, Hollywood loved to make this plot the "story" of somebody, and we got the Benny Goodman Story, the Gene Krupa Story, the Glenn Miller Story, the Eddy Duchin Story, Jim Thorpe - All American, and so on. The comedian, the race driver, the All-American basketball player, the drummer, hundreds of others: They all overcome adversity to win the Big Game, Race, Booking, etc., all the while fueled by reaction shots of the Girl sitting in the stands, audience, backstage, etc., smiling proudly because he has Won the Race and soon, we suspect, will Get the Girl. The stubborn little singer cracks the Palace. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. The sophomore halfback wins the Rose Bowl. And even later with plenty of time to think, only three names came to mind: Elvis Presley, Frankie Avalon, and George Hamilton. The effect is hypnotic, thought-provoking, and profoundly mournful. Metaphors proliferate in 'The King' with dizzying speed, glanced at and tossed aside, or lingered on and contemplated. "Winning" has been made a thousand time before. Late in the film, an old guy with a guitar sings a blues song in a junk yard, with dismantled and crushed cars towering around him. It was possibly the very first plot Hollywood ever developed into a genre. You know, you just absolutely know, how drearily predictable the basic "Winning" plot is. The movie's lesson is brutal, sad, and inescapable: Elvis Presley was a man who gave joy to a great many people but felt very little of his own, because he became addicted and stayed addicted. All of this, I've said, falls into the category of a brave attempt.
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