Love Me Tender (1956) AVC 480p.MKV.NFO
Love Me Tender (1956)
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049452/
Director: Robert D Webb
Writers: Maurice Geraghty [Story]
Robert Buckner [Screenplay]
Original Music: Lionel Newman
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Starring: Richard Egan; Debra Paget; Elvis Presley
Cast & Crew: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049452/fullcredits
Synopsis: 'Love Me Tender', named after the song, introduces Elvis Presley in
his first theatrical release. As Presley's movie debut, it was the only time
in his acting career that he did not receive top billing. It was originally to
be titled 'The Reno Brothers', but when advance sales of Presley's 'Love Me
Tender' single passed one million... a first for a single... the film title
was changed to match.
Description: Presley plays Clint Reno, the youngest of the four Reno brothers
who stays home to take care of his mother and the family farm as older
brothers Vance, Brett, and Ray fight in the American Civil War for the
Confederate Army. The family is mistakenly informed that eldest brother Vance
has been killed on the battlefield. After four years of war, the brothers
return home and find that Vance's girlfriend Cathy has married Clint. Although
Vance accepts this wholeheartedly ("We always wanted Cathy in the family"),
the family has to struggle to reach stability with this issue. The sub-plot of
unresolved passion carries the film; it is clear from the outset upon the Reno
brothers return home that Cathy still loves Vance, although she is true to the
younger Clint. Honor prevails for Vance, but jealousy turns Clint into an
irrationally thinking rival for the love of the heroine. In the film's opening
scenes, the main plot is presented; the three Reno brothers, serving as
Confederate cavalrymen, attack a Union train carrying Federal payroll of
$12,000. They do not know that the war ended only a day before. The
Confederates come to a decision to keep the money as spoils of war, an issue
that will come back into the plot after the Reno brothers return home.
***ABANDON ALL INNOCENCE YE WHO ENTER... HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!***
A conflict of interest ensues when Vance tries to return the money against the
wishes of some of his fellow Confederates, all of whom are being sought by the
US Government for robbery. The film reaches its tragic conclusion with a
gunfight between Clint and Vance, ironically ending with Clint's death during
a final shootout. In the end, the money is returned, the Reno brothers are
acquitted, and the other three ex-Confederates are arrested for Clint's death.
The youngest Reno brother is laid to rest at the family farm.
MR ROCK 'N' ROLL! He's a singin' man...
a fightin' man... a lovin' man...
in the story he was born to play!"
* * *
Before his success as a singer Presley had shown interest in becoming an
actor. He had worked as a cinema usher in his youth and would often watch his
screen idols James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Tony Curtis during shifts,
studying their acting and learning lines from their movies. When he first met
his future manager, Colonel Tom Parker, he expressed an interest in the movies
and his desire to be an actor.
In interviews during his rise to fame, Presley would often talk about his
hopes of attending somewhere like the Actors Studio. He also insisted that he
would not like to sing in any of his movies because he wished to be taken
seriously as a film star. However, Parker had a plan to cross-promote
Presley's films with his music and this led to soundtracks being as important,
if not more important, as the scripts.
Presley screen-tested for Hal Wallis on 26 March 1956 at Paramount Studios.
The test lasted three days and included Presley performing two scenes from
'The Rainmaker', and lip-syncing to 'Blue Suede Shoes'. Wallis' partner, Joe
Hazen, commented: "As a straight actor, the guy has great potentialities."
His first screen test, a scene from the William Inge play 'The Girls of
Summer', resulted in drama coach Charlotte Clary declaring to her class of
students, "Now that is a natural born actor".
On 02 April Wallis offered Presley a contract for one motion picture, with
options on six more. The contract was finalized on 25 April, and also
stipulated that Presley was free to make at least one picture a year for
other studios. Wallis, who had produced classics such as 'Casablanca',
'Little Caesar', and 'The Maltese Falcon', had promised Presley that he
would look for dramatic roles to let the singer take his acting career
seriously. Wallis considered Presley for a role in 'The Rat Race', a film
about a 'naive, innocent boy' who was struggling to make it as a musician
in Manhattan, but he decided against it after another studio executive said,
"Elvis Presley just doesn't look like that". The film was eventually made in
1960 with Tony Curtis in the lead role. Another possible idea that Wallis
mulled over was to pair Presley with Jerry Lewis. Lewis had just separated
from his comedy partner Dean Martin after a successful run of seventeen movies
together, but again the idea was shelved.
On 10 April, Presley confidently announced during a radio interview that his
debut feature would be 'The Rainmaker' with Burt Lancaster and Katharine
Hepburn. However, despite this belief, and due to Wallis being unable to find
a project "good enough for the debut of Elvis Presley", he was loaned out to
20th Century Fox on 13 August and began work on 'Love Me Tender' on 22 August.
Presley's role had originally been turned down by both Jeffrey Hunter and
Robert Wagner because the part was too small, but when Presley signed up to
the picture the role was expanded to take advantage of his current popularity.
A somewhat more realistic film telling the story of the Reno Brothers, 'Rage
at Dawn' starring Randolph Scott, had been released by RKO Radio Pictures only
the year before. According to Presley's then girlfriend, June Juanico, he was
reluctant to take the role after realizing that his character died at the end,
but he was persuaded to do it after she told him that the characters audiences
were most likely to remember were the ones who had a tragic fate.
Presley arrived for filming with all of his lines learned, as well as the
lines for all the other parts. He found filming quite tasking, once commenting
to a friend that he had spent a whole day "behind a team of mules". In little
more than a month Presley had recorded all the songs for the film and had
finished filming his scenes.
When Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show during a break in filming the
movie, on 09 September, he performed 'Love Me Tender' for the first time. Two
weeks later RCA confirmed that advanced sales of the single had resulted in it
going Gold before even being released... an industry first.
Test screenings of the film resulted in people being upset at the death of
Presley's character. Attempting to reach a compromise between the death and
pleasing his fans, Presley filmed an extra scene and recorded an extra verse
to the title track to be played over the end credits.
'Love Me Tender' had its premiere on 15 November at the Paramount Theater in
New York City, and was released nationally on 21 November 1956. 20th Century
Fox released 575 prints, a record for its studios at the time; normal releases
were only 200-300. Presley attended a private screening of the film on 20
November at Loew's State Theater in Memphis prior to its national release.
During this private screening Presley's mother, Gladys, cried at the death of
her son's character at the end, leading Presley to insist that his characters
would never die on screen again.
In its first week of release the film grossed $540,000, #2 at the box office
for that week, beaten only by James Dean's posthumous release 'Giant', and had
made back the money it cost the studio to produce it. Within weeks it had
recouped the costs of the negatives, and despite being released in November,
the film finished 1956 as the 23rd highest grossing film of the year. Despite
many critics giving it a lukewarm reception, a number of critics viewed it in
a positive light. The Los Angeles Times wrote: "Elvis can act. S'help me the
boy's real good, even when he isn't singing." Presley would later express
regret at making the film, and was disappointed that the additions of songs
had set up the future of his Hollywood career.
In his book 'Me And A Guy Named Elvis', Jerry Schilling recounts the
atmosphere inside Loew's State Theater in Memphis during the premiere
screening: "The screams of the girls around me made it just about impossible
to follow the story... this was the first time I'd seen an audience treat a
film like it was a live concert, loudly responding to every move made and word
uttered by their favorite star." Presley would later tell his friend Cliff
Gleaves that he found this type of reaction from his cinema-going fans
embarrassing, and that it had prevented him from being accepted as a serious
actor.
The film was originally intended to be a straight acting role for Presley, but
due to the popularity of the single 'Love Me Tender' and Colonel Tom Parker's
desire to promote Presley's films with a soundtrack and vice versa, four songs
were added to the film.
Instead of a full long-playing album soundtrack, the four songs appearing in
the film were released as an extended-play, seven-inch 45 RPM record on RCA
Victor, 'Love Me Tender', catalog EPA 4006, during November 1956. It peaked at
#9 on Top Pop Albums chart with sales of over 600,000, as well as making it to
#35 on the singles chart. The four EP soundtrack songs were recorded at Fox's
Stage One in Hollywood, at three sessions on 24August, 04 September, and 01
October, 1956.
The title song had already been released as a single on 28 September 1956, and
went to #1 on the singles chart. The music was based on the Civil War ballad
'Aura Lee', with new lyrics by Ken Darby. Darby, in fact, wrote all of the
soundtrack songs, but credited them to his wife, Vera Matson, while Parker cut
his publishing company, Hill and Range, in on the royalties by further
crediting the writing to Presley as well. A reprise of 'Love Me Tender' was
recorded on 01 October and is heard at the end of the film; this short track
was not released until after Presley's death. The sessions for these songs
were the only time in the decade that Presley recorded with musicians outside
his regular coterie.
Trivia: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049452/trivia
Quotes: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049452/quotes
Taglines: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049452/taglines
Source: PAL DVD
Source Studio: 20th Century Fox
Format: NTSC x264 MKV
Bitrate: 2Mb/s Average 10Mb/s Peak - 2-pass VBR
Framerate: 23.976 Progressive
Display Aspect Ratio: CinemaScope 2.40:1 1152x480
Pixel Aspect Ratio [PAR]: 1.000
72
Cropping: 03 03 [Fit to Screen]
72
Adjustments: Luminance +20
Contrast +60
Gamma +10
Chroma -255
Volume +3dB
Speed 0.96
Video Encode Time: 06:38:35
Audio: Stereo AAC 48KHz 192Kb/s
Color: Black & White
File Size: 1.49 GiB
Languages: English; Deutsch
Suomi; Nederlands; Svenska; Norsk
Closed Captioned: No
Commentary: None
Chapters: 16 [Keyframe]
Runtime: 01:29:28
Posting Date: 04 July 2013
Posting Group: alt.binaries.vintage-film.pre-1960
Spatio-Temporal Footprint: 10x10
PAR2: 24 Universal Blocks [3x2^3] (Repairs any 24 3918848 Byte Articles)
Split Size: 536870912 Bytes [2^30 / 2]
yEnc Lines: 30616
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