Take Airplane! for example. A world is set up where airport recordings talk to each other and people come out of the chute at the baggage claim while the luggage waits. By the time we get to, “And don’t call me Shirley” we are already in the screwball movie world.

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Variations include the “Fish Out Of Water,” where the protagonist is a normal person forced into an unusual world,* or the “Reverse Fish Out Of Water,” where the world is mostly normal but a character or two go through it, usually causing chaos.** 

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The problem with Live A Little, Love A Little, and before it, Tickle Me, Harum Scarum, and a few others*** is that the director**** didn’t pick one of these options and stick to it. 

 

Live A Little, Love A Little starts with Elvis out for a carefree ride in his dune buggy, down the roads of a Southern California beach town, hair blowing in a very un-Elvis-like fashion, onto the beach and through the surf, until he finally stops to lay down a blanket on the sand and take some pictures. A beautiful woman in a nearby beach house sees him and sends her dog down to bug him, then shows up herself. They have a weird interaction. He’s rude. She’s whimsical. He says his name is Greg Nolan, and he is a newspaper photographer. She says today she feels like Alice. Screwball world?  Fish out of water?  Too soon to tell...

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She makes a pass at him. He’s unimpressed. She sics her dog on him. He sits in the ocean until sunset. She takes him home to dry his clothes. He goes, even though he could just as easily drive away. He gets undressed. She tells him he has a fever. She gives him an aspirin that’s not aspirin. He sleeps for several days. When he wakes up, there is a revolving door of delivery people and exes, all with different names for Alice. She’s also Betty, Susie, Mrs. Baby,***** and Bernice.****** We seem to be in Fish Out Of Water mode. 

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But no. Greg loses his job at the newspaper in the real world, and gets in an extended fist fight with other employees who try to get him to leave the building. He goes back to his apartment and finds a wacky new person living there. Bernice gave his landlord notice and moved all of his stuff to her house. He’s mad. Then he isn’t.

 

Greg stays the night, and there is a nutty dream sequence. He goes to look for work the next day and gets two jobs, one job is at a very stuffy ad agency*******, and another job is two floors away at a Playboy-type magazine. Now Greg has two jobs, and he can literally run back and forth all day between the real world and the fantasy world. 

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Greg goes back to Bernice’s and finds a note to go to an address. He does and finds out that Bernice has rented a new house in his name and moved all of his stuff there. 

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And here’s the thing- to me, for this to all work, the protagonist has to somehow be stuck with the situation. Phil Connors can’t get past February 2. Joel Fleischman has a contract to live in Alaska. Marty McFly’s future is going to go away if he doesn’t fix things in the past. They all have no choice. 

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Greg could have (and should have) run screaming at “Today, I feel like Alice.” Bernice/ Betty/ Susan/ Alice isn’t whimsical, she’s psychotic. And if the Alice thing wasn’t a red enough red flag, well the Rufi and the getting him evicted and the moving his stuff and the moving it again sure as hell should have been. Greg has choices, and the movie gives no motivation for him dealing with any of Bernice’s crap. He doesn’t even seem to be attracted to her.

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In my book, the Fish Out Oof Water should also have one other quality- the protagonist should have a certain amount of self deprecation. Ideally the person is not only trapped, but put upon. Charles Grodin made a career out of that character.********

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But Elvis couldn’t do it, because he was freakin’ ELVIS! He didn’t look confused and sigh or take a pie in the face. He took charge. He looked cool. He got pissed and yelled and punched somebody, or a lot of somebodies. His very Elvis-ness kept him from being a straight man. 

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So people run around in Live A Little, Love A Little being whacky, without a foil, in a world that’s real and not real, with a protagonist who is sometimes one of them and sometimes not. This is the failing of every Norman Taurog Elvis movie except one, Spinout, where somehow Taurog fell back-assward into exactly the formula I’m talking about. 

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As for Norman Taurog, I hate raking him over the coals on this one, because it ended up being his last movie. He literally went blind after it. The weird thing is, Live A Little, Love A Little is the only one of his Elvis movies that uses a lot of outdoor scenes. It’s actually his best looking movie.

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Musically, there’s not much to talk about. During the title/ Greg’s dune buggy frolic, there is a pretty good song, “Wonderful World********* playing. There are a couple of clunkers, “Edge Of Reality” during the dream sequence and later the blah “Almost In Love,” which Greg sings to Bernice. 

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There is one more song, and it is a winner. Greg goes to a party with the girlie mag people and hits on a woman by singing the fantastic “A Little Less Conversation”********** to her. She goes home with him, as anyone in their right mind would. It’s the only thing in the movie that rings true.

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ACTING: 4 Elvises

MUSICAL PERFORMANCES: 6 Elvises

BEST SONG: “A Little Less Conversation”

STUNTS: Employee fighting, dune buggy stunt driving, demonic dream dancing

CRINGE FACTOR: Some sexism at magazine photo shoots, Rufi-ing

KISSIN’: Very little

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*Think Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, Joel in Northern Exposure, or Marty McFly in Back To The Future.

**The Blues Brothers, Inspector Clouseau, Elf.

***Aside from the horrible titles

****In this case, and usually in the others, Norman Taurog.

*****Mr. Baby is actually just another boyfriend, played by Dick Sargent, who is pretty much just Dick Sargent.

****** Greg settles on Bernice, so I shall, too.

*******Run by an aged Rudy Vallee, who seems to be there as the Ghost Of Pop Idol Future.

********Check out MASH. Originally there is Col. Henry Blake. He’s a regular guy surrounded by nuts who absolutely doesn’t want to be there and can’t leave. He is constantly bemused and in over his head and just wanting to get through the day. Comedy gold. Henry gets replaced by Col. Potter. He’s an army career man. He’s not hoping to get out. He’s not amused. Comedy suffers. Later, Potter becomes one of the nuts. Comedy suffers more. 

*********Not the song Louis Armstrong did so well.

**********“A Little Less Conversation” is performed in Little Elvis by Steve “Lucky” Marshall. Easy ladies. He’s married.

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