Harum Scarum (1965)

Absolutely brilliant

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Elvis Presley was a hugely influential performer with one of the most distinctive singing voices of anybody. He embarked on a film career consisting of 33 films from 1956 to 1969, films that did well at the box-office but mostly panned critically (especially his later films) and while he was a highly charismatic performer he was never considered a great actor.'Harum Scarum' has always been widely considered one of Elvis' worst films, seeing 'Harum Scarum' for myself it is not hard at all to see why. A far cry from the good films that Elvis made such as 'King Creole', 'Flaming Star', 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Viva Las Vegas' and 'Loving You', which looked good, had great soundtracks, great supporting casts and showed that Elvis could be a very capable actor when his material allowed it, even when the dialogue and stories were in a few cases not strong suits ('King Creole' was a notable exception though).The film is not irredeemable. It boasts two good songs, "Go East Young Man" and particularly the sublime "So Close Yet So Far (From Paradise)", and Elvis sings very well. Despite being in not particularly well written roles, Mary Ann Mobley and Fran Jeffries are attractive and appealing in presence. 'Harum Scarum' does pick up a little in energy at the end when things get more eventful, but at the same time it feels like too little too late.On the other hand, Elvis doesn't look like his heart was in it at all, while Michael Ansara, Phillip Reed and Theodore Marcuse similarly go through the motions in very obviously written villain roles. Then there is Jay Novello, who mugs embarrassingly as perhaps the most annoying sidekick character in an Elvis film. Billy Barty is in a non-speaking but significant role that comes over as so bizarre and barely relevant that he could easily have been cut.Apart from two songs, the rest of the soundtrack isn't all that good and in fact instantly forgettable and feel randomly placed. Faring worst are the throwaway "Shake Your Tambourine" and especially "Hello Little Girl", which is something of an unintentionally creepy disaster. Most are indifferently directed, with the static direction of Gene Nelson doing them no favours. 'Harum Scarum' doesn't even the distinction of looking good, clearly looking like it was made in haste on a low budget judging from the flat photography, exotic but recycled sets and cheaply garish costumes.When it comes to the writing and story, 'Harum Scarum' is a mess in both areas. Even those not expecting much from the script in the first place will groan in embarrassment at the non-stop clumsily written clichés, contrivances and eye-rolling corniness. Even for a late low-budget Elvis vehicle the story is wildly improbable and it is hard to forgive when so much of the film is so strained dramatically and tedious in pacing.In summary, hokey and disappointing film and one of Elvis' worst. 3/10 Bethany Cox

For me, "Harum Scarum" is a prime example of different people having different opinions...I honestly don't think this is THAT bad, really. I'm an Elvis fan so I can be accused of bias, but I didn't think every film Elvis did was top notch. I'm not a western kind of guy so "Flaming Star", "Love Me Tender" and "Charro", but I think "Harum Scarum" is far more enjoyable and attention keeping than "Girls!Girls! Girls!", "The Trouble with Girls", "Tickle Me" and even "Blue Hawaii"...like I say, different people have different tastes. I know Priscilla Presley certainly doesn't like "Harum Scarum" she slates it in her autobiography "Elvis and Me" and even The King's Manager Colonel Tom Parker didn't like this and he was the man responsible for holding Elvis back in Hollywood. Once again, Mary Ann Mobley appears as the leading lady, looking even more beautiful than she did in "Girl Happy", as a king's daughter, while another beauty - actress and nude model Fran Jefferies also has a starring role as one of the villains. The director was the dancer and musical director Gene Nelson, and the set was used in a Laurence of Arabia type movie earlier. In "Harum Scarum", Elvis plays actor, singer and martial arts Hollywood star Johnny Tyrone, who is kidnapped by naive sheik's who believe Tyrone's movie skills where he can kill a tiger with his bare hands are real, and they want him to kill a king so they can take over control. Once held captive, Tyrone attempts to escape and return to America. En route, he meets and is smitten by Mary Ann Mobley and his escape plan soon makes way for plan B as he plots to save the King from the evil assassins and win the heart of his daughter. The soundtrack is not bad. They only song I'm not fond on is "Shake That Tambourine". "Kismet" and "Golden Coins" are fine songs, but all are nowhere near the sublime "So Close, Yet So Far (from Paradise)". A real hidden Gem from Elvis' movie soundtracks and one of my top 10 Elvis songs he ever recorded, it's a shame it had to appear in one of his most critically panned movies thus gets so criminally overlooked.

Well, at least we get to hear eight songs by Elvis in this otherwise hokey movie.Here we see Elvis as a film star touring the Middle East to promote his latest movie. He is kidnapped by a gang of assassins who think he is a real action hero and want him to carry out a hit on the King for them.The director is Gene Nelson, a TV director, who's only ventured occasionally into the movie house for this, a Hank Williams Bio, a full-length Hootananey, a couple of other minor films, and another Elvis film, 1964's Kissin' Cousins.Elvis's co-star is Mary Ann Mobley, a former Miss America who also co-starred with him in the same year's Girl Happy - pretty, but no real actress, who stuck mostly to TV series.

About in an hour into this mid-60's Arabian Nights dreck, there's a moment when Elvis sings the above-referenced song. In this subtle though not well-staged, two-minute scene (Elvis sits motionless and cross-armed by a prison barred window), the song's lyrics sadly reveal what poor Elvis truly must have felt personally regarding his nose-diving professional acting career. He was still a strong top box office draw (So Close), but he had somehow become and remained mired in below even below-average DRECK like this movie (Yet So Far) after the fact that the decade had already produced "Help!" and "A Hard Day's Night." Some IMDb reviewers blame Col. Parker and the evil-Elvis-inner-circle, but I think the blame rests with Mr. Presley himself … a truly American tragic figure who should have courageously asserted himself and said "No more!" even if it meant buying out his movie contracts and firing losers like Col. Parker.As for the rest of the film, TERRIBLE! It has "why bother?" karma (emanating from behind and in-front of the camera) that hangs over the entire production. It begins with a cheesy horrible opening credits then continues w/ Ansara's repetitive "Karnac the Magnificent"-like hand gestures in every scene he's in, then onto Ms. Jeffries wearing a black body-hugging kittenish outfit (w/ matching white scarf) that makes her acting and looking like she's auditioning for Catwoman on "Batman" instead of performing in "Harum Scarum", and then this dreck ends with a Vegas-casino musical number TOTALLY out of place with the previous hour-and-a-half Middle East-based "storyline."Earlier on, there's one jaw-dropping musical number scene that's borderline soft-kiddie porn when Presley (wearing really gay green pants that don't hide the bulge in his crotch) sings to little orphan girl Malkin a song clearly meant for an adult woman w/ lyrics like "I want you for my very own" and "I want to take you home with me." Presley watches as his pre-teen firecrotch (with slits in her dress that are WAIST-HIGH) gyrates faux-seductively. It's a really LAUGH-INDUCING, inappropriate, wildly politically-incorrect musical number.