The Great Gatsby (1962)

D. Randal MacDougall
Colour


I don’t care what anyone says, Elvis Presley as Jay Gatsby works!


This is a movie which gets a lot of stick, even from Elvis fans. Yes that’s right, even those ultra-defensive individuals who’ll fervently make the case that EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING the man did was brilliant to every semiquaver, will slag off this film. Complaints I’ve read include that the period detail looks unconvincing, that the supporting case is painfully uncharismatic and that the songs are crap. That last one is particularly odd, as the songs really aren’t that bad, if you slog your way through Elvis soundtrack album after Elvis soundtrack album (I don’t recommend this as a leisure activity by the way) you will find dozens of worse examples. Other complaints are that the script doesn’t really capture the book, that it’s poorly paced and that – really – ‘The Great Gatsby’ shouldn’t come with a quasi-happy ending.


And I’ll be honest, a lot of that is true. The period trappings are a little staid with any detail coming from stock footage and fake backdrops. Obviously the more contemporary setting of ‘Wuthering Heights’ was better, but the 1920s – if we’re honest – is not so far away from Elvis’s milieu as to be ridiculous. Michael Landon as Nick Carroway and Linda Evans as Daisy Buchanan are both bland as hell, clearly miscast and losing all their television charisma on the big screen. As for the songs, yes there are some turgid examples, but then there are a couple of catchy ones – the Leiber & Stoller ‘Money, Money, Money’ (clearly no relation to the Abba track) is a particular foot stamper. And really, we’re going to criticise an Elvis adaptation of a classic novel because it doesn’t show sufficient fidelity? It’s an Elvis adaptation of a classic novel - Different Rules Apply!


It seems to me though that all these criticisms miss the point of the enterprise, as this entire film – more than ‘Loving You’, more than any of the concert movies – is a film all about Elvis. This is a movie, this a character, that Elvis Presley just owns! Think about it: the tale of a self-made man who comes from nothing to live the life of opulence; the story of a man who dared to dream big and had all those dreams come true; a man who achieved so much from so little and so must have felt a stranger in his own skin. This could be the Elvis Presley story. Elvis is Jay Gatsby in a way that he is never any other part. In a way that completely negates later interpretations by Robert Redford or Leonardo DiCaprio. On screen this is him at his best, pure and undistilled. This is a magnetic performance of sheer dynamism, a brilliant showing which truly captures the highs and lows of not only the story, but Elvis’s whole career.


Apparently Elvis was disappointed not to get an Oscar nomination, I can truly see why.


Those naysayers are wrong as even though there are plenty of flaws, those flaws all melt away in the face of Elvis’s performance. Yes, in isolation it’s hard to imagine Linda Evans inspiring anybody’s eternal passion, but Elvis manages to convince that this is the case; just as he makes it believable that he’d take Michael Landon as a friend (and not just someone to pelt with wet toilet roll whenever he saw him); or that Jay Gatsby could and should come out somewhere on top. Okay, the ending is contentious and I would find it ridiculously dubious in any other adaptation, but here the near happy ending is one all Elvis fans should root for. As this isn’t F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is Elvis Presley’s. And who wouldn’t want to see a happier ending to ‘The Great Presley’?