My Rival Is A Baby Blue Racing Car: Viva Las Vegas (1964)

Showmanship is somewhat of an intangible thing in a contemporary frame of reference as the performer that is all encompassing in skills, that also happens to perform the socially ascribed understanding of masculinity is somewhat rare.  While Justin Timberlake is probably the only current example of this, it was in my mind a space only reserved for the likes of Fred Astaire and a few of the other classic crooners, although there could be a slighted case made for Tom Waits falling into this equation.  Although that would result in its own rambling digression.  I say this because my encounter with Viva Las Vegas led me to an appreciation for Elvis Presley as a showman, sure he is far from the world's best actor, but he delivers his lines with just enough Robert Mitchum inspired swagger to afford himself respect, particularly when placed within the larger scope of singing and dancing.  Elvis could certainly belt out some lyrics and he was assuredly poised in his jive dancing.  Indeed, the title song for Viva Las Vegas is most well known musically, but I am somewhat certain that I will no longer find myself capable of detaching it from swaying and swinging occurring within its reprise in the film.  However, this is only one element of the film as it too proves to be a perfect consideration of how the male gaze works in film, perhaps even sufficing as the pinnacle of such occurrences.  Where Laura Mulvey to have not engaged with a critique of Classic Hollywood through the scope of River of No Return, then this romp through Vegas showgirl bars, paired with a noted fascination on the figure of Ann-Margaret.  This problem acknowledged, much like River of No Return, Viva Las Vegas is an absolute cinematic feast, one whose vibrant variant of Technicolor allows for its showy locations to glimmer and sparkle in all their neon excess, never pulling back the gaudiness during any of its 86 minute run time.  Admittedly the film does meander around a bit, particularly during the closing race scenes, but in early sixties desire for a natural order, the film does return to the highly heteronormative in the most puritanical of senses.  Be warned though, it is damn near impossible to not begin tapping one's foot during this musical.

Viva Las Vegas centers on the exploits and engagements of Lucky Jackson (Elvis Presley) an aspiring sports car racer and full-time mechanic.  With his eye on a particularly high grade engine, Lucky gambles his money at a game of craps with success.  However, even this good fortune does not prove quite enough to attain the engine instantly, particularly since the owner has yet to receive any form of compensation from Lucky.  While in the works to attain his car, Lucky encounters Italian racing phenom Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova) whose own desires to win cause him to actively bribe Lucky into being his car-based bodyguard during the race, agreeing to lose to him in the process.  The wild Jackson refuses flat out, instead suggesting that he can only play to win.  However, understanding the power and skill present within Mancini, he asks to look under his hood to see what he is working with in terms of machinery.  During this engagement a woman named Rusty Martin (Ann-Margaret) comes with the hopes of getting her car fixed, wherein her looks lead to another form of competition between Lucky and Mancini over her attraction and admiration.  While it is rather clear that Rusty takes a liking to Lucky over Mancini, the aristocratic Italian finds ways to uses his economic wealth to his advantage, all the while Lucky is forced to work in service jobs to attain the money necessary to run in the race, a task made all the more difficult when during an encounter with Rusty he is knocked into a pool.  While swimming out of the pool he loses his cash, only to have a precocious child throw it into a water drain.  Understanding that it will take almost guile alone to win Rusty from Mancini, Lucky navigates his way into being their server during a romantic date, at which point Lucky makes Mancini out to be a fool and promotes his status as ideal in the process.  Eventually Lucky does accrue the required money and races against Mancini and others winning the race and subsequently the hand of Rusty in the process, the two, one can assume, will go onto live their youth together as a mechanic and lifeguard respectively.

This movie is about male spaces, more so even than most war films or sports movies.  This, mind you, is coming from a musical.  However, I assure that this observation is well-grounded and extends to almost every portion of the film.  This is primarily evidenced in the cinematic male gaze at play in the film, which is first realized through the legs of Ann-Margaret's Rusty as she ventures into the shop in which both Mancini and Lucky work, here the two men previously fixated on the undercarriage of a car, extend the same curious gaze outward to the physical features of Rusty, playing on the object nature of her body, particularly that thing which facilitates mobility.  However, where the mobility is frozen by the gaze and Rusty cannot move without the help of the two men, both because her car is literally broken, but her legs are figuratively rusted as her name would suggest, until they allow her movement.  This shared desire for driving and objectifying Rusty allows for a certain layer of the homosocial bond to occur, wherein both Lucky and Mancini can also objectify Rusty's otherness, particularly in contrast to their own masculine game playing.  The otherness of Rusty allows the two to fight and claw, whilst ultimately blaming it on Rusty.  Indeed, one of the earliest entries into my blog was regarding the 1926 silent film The Flesh and the Devil wherein I argued that it might be the greatest example of the homosocial bond in cinema, however, Viva Las Vegas does give it quite a run for its money.  If this were not emphasis enough the interactions between Lucky and Rusty all revolve around his still hoping to attain a spot in a race and, subsequently victory, wherein Rusty devotes a musical number to her admitting a need to compete with a car.  If the metaphor of the male space were only a mere passing though, this song and Rusty's internalization of her equating to a vehicle, assure viewers that in the world of Lucky and Mancini both women and cars are things to be driven and used for sport and leisure, indeed, the closing moments of this film revolving around a wedding would be simple and outwardly normative, the addition of the race prior only makes it a thing to be won.  Marriage is a race for Lucky and Mancini with Rusty playing the part of the veritable trophy.

Key Scene:  While it was probably not the best musical number of the entire film, I was particularly keen on The Yellow Rose of Texas as it showed the true breadth of Presley's performing chops.

This film is problematic, but it is equally watchable and worth the time of cinephiles and films theorists alike.  Furthermore, it is quite easy to come by for a cheap price.

There You Are, Right Back In The Jungle Again: Duel (1971)

While I am quite aware that there are a ton of films I still need to catch up within regards to the "most important" works of cinema, both American and foreign, it is quite nice to be at a point in my film consumption that I am able to dig deeper and find lesser known gems for viewing experience, especially the discoveries of lesser known works by well-established directors, particularly those of Steven Spielberg.  In the past few decades Spielberg has all but made himself the face of American filmmaking by creating gripping narratives that often double as fully realized blockbusters.  Now it is also worth acknowledging the particularly troublesome notion of films being Spielbergian which seems to account as being both negative and positive simultaneously, granting that his use of orchestra heavy John Williams scores and sweeping camera work cause very real emotive responses within their viewers, while also arguing that this highly-stylized execution on the part of Spielberg is in some ways hokey or hammed-up for effect.  While there is a degree of validity to this argument, it is quite necessary to remember that these descriptors account for a specific set of films by the director, whose cannon is almost inconceivably expansive.  The epic nature of his films often only hold true for those that are in their very nature fantastical, whether it be Jurassic Park or the Indiana Jones films.  Indeed, if one were to revisit something like Jaws or Schlinder's List it becomes rather obvious that the over-the-top nature of the auteur only emerges when it is begged from the narrative.  To solidly entrench this argument I offer what may well be the biggest hidden gem in Spielberg's oeuvre, his 1971 television movie Duel, which exists within the world of implausibility and intensity, while also managing not to be an entirely showy or melodramatically over-abundant film.  Indeed, I would even contest that this film is a highly internal work that focuses on the experiences of a singular man in relation to a terrible encounter that invariably leads to his fracturing from insanity, the acting is surprisingly minimal given the movies concept and the music is decidedly diagetic.  Perhaps it was the fact that the film was made-for-tv that resulted in Spielberg reigning in his showy ways, but one thing is for certain, it shows a varied cinematic output by one of film's most identifiable directors and the result is quite excellent.


Duel is a decidedly enclosed narrative, focusing nearly entirely on the experiences of David Mann (Dennis Weaver) a non-descript business man who is taking a semi-lengthy trip for a meeting with somebody a couple of hours from his home.  With only the absurd discussions of talk radio to accompany him he heads about his way, hoping to make great time an endeavor that leads to him passing a slowly moving freight truck with little or no thought.  However, immediately after this decision, it becomes clear that the unseen trucker is quite infuriated with David for his act and begins bullying the much smaller car by passing him on the narrow road and blocking him from moving any further.  An irate David pulls into a gas station to seek respite and  calls his wife to apologize for some vague event involving a sexually demeaning advance by another man at a part, an act for which David apparently stood by indifferently.  David clearly hopes that this brief pause will afford him escape from the encroachment of the maniacal truck, although it becomes quite obvious upon return to the road that the trucker's vendetta is far from over.   What follows is a highly intense game of cat and mouse between David and the truck driver, wherein David constantly attempts to take advantage of his much smaller size and speed to take side roads and the like, even going so far as to break at a local diner in order to approach the truck driver in person, yet in the decidedly elusive nature of the driver, David ends up showing face and ultimately gets kicked out of the restaurant for starting altercations with the customers.  All the while, David is continually chased by the trucker who shows no hesitation in destroying all that is in his path in order to teach David a lesson.  When David attempts to seek solace by helping a group of children and their bus driver get back on the road it is only another point of failure as he is again attacked by the truck driver who chases David off and immediately aids the children in their getting back on the road, verifying that the driver's wild behavior is entirely intended for David.  Ultimately, the chase leads to a dead end of sorts and a showdown occurs between the much smaller vehicle David is driving and the truck, but in a last minute move of genius that plays upon the rampage of the truck driver, David is able to get the truck to drive off of a cliff, thus, assumedly, killing the driver in the process.  Yet given his ultimate escape, David does not immediately return home, instead he sits dazed by the events and simply tosses rocks in to the wreckage in the canyon below.

The tossing of the rocks pretty much entrenches the films clear narrative influence which, while pulled from a short story, clearly borrows heavily from the biblical tale of David and Goliath, both in the chucking of rocks at a figurative slain beast, as well as the title character's all to obvious name.  However, David's last name is Mann, which helps to conceptualize the second layer of Spielberg's Duel, which clearly seems to deal with the issues of failed masculinity and the misguided attempts to reassert one's masculine loss a theme that is present to varying degrees within other works by Spielberg, particularly Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but seems to be most blatant and wild within the context of this film.  Between the failed ability to assert himself in an awkward situation the day before, as evidenced by his brief conversation with his wife and his recounting of his experiences in what viewers can assume to be the Vietnam War, David has assumedly lost all sense of self-worth, even going so far as to silently relate to a man who bemoans feeling as though he is not the head of his household, while he is quick to laugh off another man who is concerned with whether or not his filling out of the census will result in his home being invaded.  With this in mind, one is better able to understand the frustrations that come to a boil, leading to David's initial passing of the truck, it is half out of a need to speed up his travel time and as passive condemnation of the truck for interfering with his ability to escape his lack.  Yet, when the truck driver quickly puts David into check, what unfolds is a series of missteps and failures to verify his own masculinity some taking very physical form, whether it be his cowering in fear when his verbal threats fail at the diner, or his own attempt to exert a "perfect male sense of direction" to elude the truck driver.  David runs the gamut of attempts to be a man only to find that in this scenario those assumedly male advantage  are both useless but, arguably irrelevant.  Metaphorically speaking, David is also reminded of his own failures as a male in the form of references to what might be his impotence, these realizations occur most noticeably at the aptly named Snake-o-rama gas station, as well as his failure to "perform" when he cannot push the phallic-like bus through the tunnel, a metaphor only heightened when David notices the truck waiting at the other end of the tunnel, suggesting that another phallic power already resides in his place, one that is sexually adept and bigger.  It is no coincidence that David's ultimate success comes in his avoiding a head on conflict with the truck driver, finding that butting phallic heads proved futile.  It is worth considering this in relation to some other Spielberg works, because I am quite confident that it is a metaphor that extends well through a series of his early works.

Key Scene:  The Snake-o-rama scene is wild and surprisingly elaborate for a television movie.

Quite a surprise for an early work and while Jaws is the definitive starting point for Spielberg, I would highly encourage checking this movie out because it is as thrilling as they come.