Not that there aren’t more songs. It’s just that they are not very good. And not just not very good, but weird sounding*** and disjointed and inconsistent. They are so jarring at points that I stopped to see where and when they were recorded. It turns out that none of the nine songs in the movie was actually recorded for Tickle Me. They were all recorded previously for other movies or albums, some as far back as 1960. To save money, no new music was recorded for Tickle Me.

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And that sense of cutting corners permeates every aspect of the movie. It was directed by Norman Taurog, (barf) who knew how to get the worst performances out of the King of Rock and Roll, and also knew how to save a buck.**** How did he do it? By using sets that look like they were left over from TV shows, not using any famous actors, and I’m guessing hiring screen writers that had previously only written for The Three Stooges. Just kidding. I looked it up. Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds had previously only written Three Stooges films. It explains why people get their feet stuck in buckets, a horse sings background vocals, and the love interest repeatedly smashes Elvis over the head while trying to help him during fights. 

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Speaking of fights, there are no less than five major fights in Tickle Me. They are long and badly choreographed, one and all. And dumb. It’s all so dumb.

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I guess I should get around to the “Plot.” Elvis is Lonnie Beale, a rodeo champion. He ends up working at a place called the Circle Z Ranch, which is a dudettte ranch where beautiful women go to get more beautiful, I guess. They mostly strut around in bikinis and do bendy exercises for Lonnie and the camera. 

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There’s an instructor named Pam. She’s, you know, Hot. Stupid stuff happens. Some of it involves a map that Pam’s grandfather left her for treasure in the nearby ghost town. That only matters because Tickle Me winds up with Lonnie and Pam and the nerd tag-along Stanley going to the ghost town and having to stay the night and there’s lightning and actual ghosts and people in Halloween masks attacking them and, if, at this point, you’re thinking “This sounds like an episode of Scooby Doo!” well, you’re not the only one. And well, it of course it ends with the unmasking of the werewolf and zombie or whatever, and those crazy kids ruining it for everyone. And I guess Hanna-Barbera owes Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds a buck or two.

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For now, this is the worst Elvis movie I can imagine. But tomorrow’s movie is Harum Scarum, so that honor may not last long.

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ACTING: 2 Elvises

MUSICAL PERFORMANCES: 1 Elvis

BEST SONG: “(It’s A) Long, Lonely Highway”

STUNTS: stupid long fights, some karate, kidnappings, bumbling, tanking a great career*****

CRINGE FACTOR: Just all of it. 

KISSIN’: Yeah

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*One of the lyrics in “(It’s A) Long, Lonely Highway” is “But you gotta keep on goin', on that road to nowhere…” Maybe the most fitting intro song ever.

**A bit of an exaggeration. The song “Dirty, Dirty Feeling” is actually pretty good too.

***The vocal on ”It Feels So Right” is just drowned in reverb.

****Elvis was paid $600K plus $150k in expenses to make the movie. The actual production cost of the movie itself? $406,400, the cheapest movie to date.

*****Just to put this movie in pop culture perspective, it came out between the Beatles releasing the single “Ticket To Ride” and the single release of “Help!”​​​