Quote:
Originally Posted by The Great Owl
Last night, I watched my Twilight Time Blu-ray of Flaming Star.
Elvis Presley starred in roughly 30 films, but many of them were simply extended "music videos" or cinematic vehicles to promote his stardom. This 1960 western, however, features Elvis in a genuine honest-to-goodness character role as Pacer, a Texas cowboy whose life is thrown into turmoil during escalating tensions between settlers and native Americans, because he is the son of a white father and a native American mother. It's surreal to see Elvis as a tough-as-nails gunfighter who can also fist-fight with the best of them. Steve Forrest, who is best known for his role in the S.W.A.T. television show, is excellent as Pacer's half-brother who is thrown into the conflict as well, while Dolores del Rio shines in her role as the mother. Barbara Eden, whom we all know from I Dream Of Jeannie, also has a prominent role as a friend who is sympathetic to both brothers.
Flaming Star depicts an older America that is beset with difficult times, because increased polarization between races posed a hardship for those in the middle ground. Pacer and his family seem to represent such a middle ground as people who get along with those from both sides, so it's all the more sad to see them pulled apart as the story progresses.
The video presentation of this CinemaScope classic on Blu-ray is quite impressive, even if colors seem somewhat muted. The audio quality is near flawless.
The sleep monster caught me last night as I was listening to the commentary track, but I enjoyed the early part of the commentary where Nick Redman and Lem Dobbs discuss this movie in relation to Elvis Presley's cinematic career as a whole.
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I popped in my Twilight disc of
Flaming Star a couple nights ago and followed up with the Redman and Dobbs commentary last night, and felt quite satisfied to have spent a couple nights with Elvis spinning in my Oppo.
Though I grew up in the 80s, Elvis' music and films were pretty popular growing up in my household (an Elvis "Best of" and The Beach Boys Surfin' USA were the first two CDs I ever owned) so I've been buying some of these Twilight releases with a curiosity to see if any of them stirred any recall. I don't believe I've ever seen
Flaming Star before but I think I can say with certainty that I'd see it again.
With some excellent context in the commentary, the significance of the film ends up resting mostly on its dynamic young star and the implications it had on his career.I thought the comment about how there is a certain sadness with old films due to the reality that many of the players are deceased really resonated, especially in this one with Elvis Presley. The film/commentary also sparked some interesting ideas.
Stars and "singular talents" in 2017 enjoy much more personal freedom over the direction of their careers and finances compared to somebody like Elvis who throughout his was quite confined in a myriad of ways. The commentary makes me wonder if the overall attitude towards his career has increased in levels of sympathy or pity as the "Elvis Era" has gotten further away in time.
[Show spoiler]I suppose this could also have been a reflection of the film's ending and tone/meaning of the "Flaming Star of Death" but it wasn't quite what I expected to be thinking about after an Elvis film!
The story is pretty vanilla but Presley shows real acting ability, truly making me wonder what he could have done with a real script. The supporting cast, as Owl mentions, is great, but the only non-Elvis interest in the film IMO is its director Don Siegel. Whatever the final sum of its part, the film is obviously directed by a somebody that knows what they're doing. Siegel was not simply a director, he was a filmmaker that knew the language of filmmaking. There were several scenes that stood out for their coverage alone, not to mention
[Show spoiler]Del Rio's burial scene.
Thanks again to Twilight Time for another fine release!
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