I really don’t have it in me to go through the plot points in detail. Elvis is the “half-breed”* Pacer Burton. His dad is white, his mom is Kiowa Indian. He has a white step brother. They live in Texas in 1878. The white people don’t like them. The Kiowa don’t trust them. Pacer is caught in the middle, being a half-breed and all, and is being forced to chose a side.

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Flaming Star really seems to be trying to make a statement. Just so you don’t miss it, Pacer actually says it at the end, right before he rides off to die** (Spoiler!) “Maybe someday people like ours will all be able to live together in peace.” Well, that was a long walk around the block to get to that, Pacer…

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It’s just impossible to take Flaming Star seriously by today’s standards. There are characters named Buffalo Horn and Two Moons and Lame Crow. The Kiowa call Pacer’s mom Thin Woman Who Deserts Her Own People. They speak in stilted English and live in perfect tepees. They quiz Pacer about the Earth being “round like a ball.” And did I mention that Elvis plays a half Indian character?

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On the non-plot side, I have to say something about a technical aspect of Flaming Star. I hate Day For Night scenes in movies. It’s where they shoot a night scene during the day with some filters to try to make you think it’s night. It always looks fake, and Flaming Star is about 80% Day For Night scenes. And for the most part, there is absolutely no reason any given scene is happening in the middle of the night. It’s like they said, “Well, we’ve got these filters, let’s just shoot the whole damn movie with them.”***

 

Also of note, there are basically no songs in Flaming Star. There is the song Flaming Star during the opening credits. Then the movie starts with a goofy birthday party scene (complete with “Surprise!” An Old West favorite, the surprise party…) During the party, Elvis and the gang sing a goofy song about courting. Then the party’s over, the guests ride off, and a few seconds later, there is an Indian attack and someone gets a tomahawk in the face. Wait, what? Jesus, what the hell just happened?

 

As for the Cringe Factor, which I usually add as a footnote at the end of the review, Flaming Star is pretty much nothing but Cringe Factor. There is pretty much everything I’ve mentioned so far, but there are also a couple of non-half-breed related points:

At one point, Pacer needs the town doctor to come back and help his ma. When the townspeople refuse to let the doctor go, Pacer decides to kidnap a little girl until the doctor agrees to come. Why did anyone think this was a good idea?

 

Toward the end, Pacer’s brother gets speared and bowed and arrowed by the Kiowa chief. Pacer decides to disguise himself as one of the tribe by painting his face with his brother’s blood. What. The. Serious. F….

 

And finally, Elvis has played characters that killed in self defense, in defending others, or by accident. In Flaming Star he’s a killing machine. I lost count when the body count got up to around seven or eight. 

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I understand now why Elvis turned to pills and alcohol making these movies. Watching them, I’m about to myself.

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ACTING: 4 Elvises - A decent performance of terrible material

MUSICAL PERFORMANCES: 2 Elvises - Literally

BEST SONG: Flaming Star - It came from a more innocent time in my life, when I didn’t know what the movie had in store for me.

STUNTS: Fight with knife, ambush!, fight with shootin’, kidnapping of little girl, horse riding, tomahawking

CRINGE FACTOR: Pretty much the whole thing. See above

KISSIN’: Zero. Nada. Zilch. Barbara Eden is perfectly wasted in this movie.

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*The movie uses the term half-breed. A lot.

**I really thought Col. Tom would never let Elvis die in another movie. I stand corrected.

***I meant to mention Day For Night in my G.I. Blues review, because there is a hilariously bad use of it. Elvis is leaving a girl’s house at 4am. As he is backing up his car “at night” he almost runs over two kids on bicycles.