Well, actually, no. It’s a fairly thoughtful movie, for, you know, an Elvis movie. Elvis is as laid back and natural as he’s been in any movie for a while. He plays Scott Hayward. Scott is the super rich son of the super-duper rich Texas Oil Baron Duster Hayward, played by a charmingly over the top James Gregory. 

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Scott is heading to Florida to get away from daddy and his money when he runs into Tom Wilson, played by a great Will Hutchins. They get to talking and while bemoaning their lots in life, they decide to switch places. Scott can see what it’s like to be broke and have to work for a living. And to know that if a girl falls for him, it’s for him and not his money. Tom can see what it’s like to have it all and live like a trust fund douchebag. 

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So Scott takes Tom’s motorcycle and Tom takes Scott’s car, which is seriously the finest GD sports car in any Elvis movie.* It’s a 1959 Corvette Concept Car, and it’s a crying shame that Clambake wasn’t a car racing movie. The thing’s a work of art.

 

Anyway, they drive off singing “Who Needs Money?” which is one of my favorite Elvis movies songs, although the movie version adds some weird horns.

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So Scott/Tom/Elvis and Tom/Scott start their new life in the Presidential Suite of the Shores Resort in Miami. In walks Diane Carter, played by Shelley Fabares, making her record third appearance as an Elvis Movie Love Interest.  Diane is in Miami, by her own admission, to meet and marry a rich guy. She meets Scott/Tom/Elvis and they hit it off, but she’s got her eye on Lingerie Company Mogul and famous boat racer James “JJ” Jameson, played by Bill Bixby. JJ is a condescending jerk with blonde hair that is decidedly not Bill Bixby-like. 

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Here’s the part where things get interesting. Instead of Scott/Tom/Elvis getting upset or moody or being jerk about Diane wanting JJ, he goes out of his way to help her get together with him. That leads to them spending some time together and having some non-date dates and getting to know one another. This is a level of maturity heretofore never seen in an Elvis movie.

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While all of that’s going on, Scott/Tom/Elvis is working at the ski shop, which leads to him meeting a race boat owner. The guy has an experimental boat design that fell apart in the big race last year. Luckily, Scott/Tom/Elvis spent some time in college getting a degree in chemistry/ boat design/ mechanical engineering/ other important stuff and feels pretty sure he can rebuilt the boat AND perfect the waterproof resin called GOOP that his dad’s company gave up on. Oh, and kick JJ’s ass in the Big Boat Race in less than a week. He can and does all of it, naturally.

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There is, of course, a clambake, which includes the song “Clambake,” which is really good but suffers from weird horn arrangements, just like “Who Needs Money?” The same is true for “Hey, Hey, Hey.”** The horn parts sound like they were added by players that couldn’t hear the original songs and were just guessing on the timing. The great ballads “A House That Has Everything” and “You Don’t Know Me” fair much better.

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Clambake is a good Elvis movie that could be a great Elvis movie if just a scene or two were removed. In particular is a scene at a playground where Scott/Tom/Elvis and Tom/Scott sing a horrible song, “Confidence,” with a bunch of children. It comes out of nowhere, goes nowhere, and is physically painful to watch.*** The whole scene could be cut and it would not be missed at all. There must have been some thinking in the studios that every Elvis movie had to have “something for the kids” because the “Elvis sings with kids” scene is pretty much a mid-period trope at this point.****

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The funniest scene in my book is when JJ gets annoyed by Scott/Tom/Elvis and challenges him to a fight. JJ yells “I chose Karate!” and Scott/Tom/Elvis just rolls his eyes and knocks him out with one punch.***** The self awareness of what a joke karate(!) has become in these movies is refreshing. Like most of the rest of Clambake. And who doesn’t like a nice refreshing clambake?

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ACTING: 7 Elvises

MUSICAL PERFORMANCES: 7 Elvises

BEST SONG: “Hey, Hey, Hey”

STUNTS: One punch karate fight, simulated boat racing, clambake dancing

CRINGE FACTOR: Little kid scene, with Cowboys and Indians break

KISSIN’: One or two.

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*The finest car in general still goes to the Mongrel T, for esthetic and family reasons.

**“Hey, Hey, Hey” deserves special notice for a couple of reasons. First, the entire chorus, such as it is, is  a repeated “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” (and not “Hey, Hey, Hey.”) It modulates in mid-chorus every chorus, a total of four modulations. It has no bridge. It also manages to use the made up chemical name for GOOP, Glacooxytonic Phosphate, in the lyrics. It’s genius.

***This is not to say that it is “Yoga Is As Yoga Does” bad. But still, pretty bad.

****Interestingly, the director Arthur H. Nadel never directed another movie, Elvis or otherwise. He did go on to work on television shows such as Shazam, Space Academy, Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids, and She-Ra: Princess Of Power.

*****Think Indiana Jones pulling out his gun and casually shooting the guy with the swords in Raiders.