Acapulco (1963)

Acapulco: Directed by Richard Thorpe. With Elvis Presley, Ursula Andress, Elsa Cárdenas, Paul Lukas. A yacht owner’s spoiled daughter gets Mike fired, but a boy helps him get a job as singer at Acapulco Hilton etc. He upsets the lifeguard by taking his girl and 3 daily work hours. Mike’s also seeing a woman bullfighter.

“After her big break role in Dr. No Ursula Andress got to co-star with Elvis Presley in Fun In Acapulco. Not that she or Elvis got to have any fun in Acapulco off the set because Paramount did all their location footage with doubles. On learning that fact I carefully watched all the scenes and if you examine it closely which the average member of the movie-going public did not do you can clearly see that the King is being doubled.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eStill Acapulco is certainly shown to best advantage with that second unit cinematography. And Elvis sings some nice songs, none of which really charted for him. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFun In Acapulco find Elvis working as a charter boat skipper who gets fired and is stranded in the famous Mexican resort town. He has a past which involves him being involved in a family trapeze act and when he failed to catch his brother during the act resulting in the brotheru0026#39;s demise it left him with a fear of heights and failure. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eStill he can sing and he gets a job at one of the resorts due to an enterprising shoeshine boy played by little Larry Domasin. And he gets two girls falling for him, lady bullfighter Elsa Cardenas and an exiled princess Ursula Andress. That gets Mexican high diving champion Alejandro Rey all bent out of shape. Ursulau0026#39;s dad, a former Grand Duke from some Zenda like duchy is played by Paul Lukas who is now making a living as the head chef at the resort hotel Presley is singing at. Another great example of Colonel Tom Parker getting Elvis the best support possible. I have no doubt that Parker also got former MGM contract director Richard Thorpe who did a number of MGM classics back in the day to direct the film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eElvis does a bit of acting here and Fun In Acapulco gives the King a bit of an acting job which he carries off as he struggles with his fears.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIu0026#39;m sure Presley felt gypped along with the rest of the cast in not actually shooting in Acapulco. The second unit shooting though gives Fun In Acapulco a look like the Hawaiian location films that Presley did. And itu0026#39;s a nice story with a capable cast backing up the King.”