Verschollen im Harem

Perhaps I was in a very forgiving frame of mind but "Harum Scarum" went down pretty well. Widely regarded as one of the King's worst offenders and he was disappointed with the results as he thought (before reading the finished script) that this would be a welcome change of pace from his established formula.

The scenery is a breath of fresh air (though we all know it's MGM's back lot for the most part) and the film has a bit more of a plot than usual; although it's very clumsily handled. The comedy bits are fairly lackluster and the action is rather stiff but the film moves along well with few to no lulls. Elvis has a strong presence but he really doesn't strain himself too much and he receives little support from his fellow co-stars; though Billy Barty (most memorable as J.J. MacKuen from "Foul Play") does induce a few chuckles without a line of dialog.

The songs range from pedestrian to very good ("Kismet" and "So Close (Yet So Far) From Paradise") and the girls, as almost always is the case with Presley films, are quite the eye candy.

"Harum Scarum" is not good but it's breezy enough entertainment for fans of Elvis that's not quite as bad as it's reputation suggests. I'd choose this over "Stay Away, Joe" any day of the week.

Elvis returns, this time he is slightly weathered, quite a bit more lethargic, and desperate to escape his captors. But, his captors are not the oil paint smeared Arabs, nor the fairly innocuous women that surround him. His captors are much bigger than one motion picture could possibly describe. They are the entire industry he has found himself immersed in. They are the money-hungry culture vultures that readily devour a popular figure like him until he is but a bloated pasty corpse. This film shows them as they are through their sinister machinations. They can be seen with invisible marionette string as they force Elvis to march around in costume, as they prod him with sharp knives into doing little lackluster dances that turn into morose forced marches across the barren tundra of his once mighty career. This is not the Elvis of folklore, nor is it the Elvis that will return one day and save us from mediocrity. This is the dry Elvis, milked fully, udders raw, yet ever sedated. The Elvis that might have died on the screen in front of your eyes and you might have not even noticed it. Don't let the bright lights and forced smile fool you. It is your duty to lament this vision before you, because it is an ugly one.

Widely considered to be Elvis' dumbest movie ever and the source of many prime gags in Top Secret, Harum Scarum is worth watching only for those Elvis fans interested in answering the question of what went wrong with his movie career. The answer was quite simply that, to Colonel Parker, Elvis was a carnival concession. He was getting million dollar offers to keep at the same old formula junk and since Parker had no idea how good movies were made he kept agreeing to the deals while the money was there. Harum Scarum shows the formula at its most derivative. Elvis himself looked bored and distracted at times on screen and even messed up some of his lip synching! The bulk of the songs are strictly for the Pat Boone set and badly out of date before the movie even came out. At a time of rapid change and great excitement in the music world (the Beatles made HELP around the same time) the music in Elvis' movies did not evolve or change, it just got recycled. The sets are also retreads, studio back lot leftovers from earlier better movies which look about as authentically middle eastern as a Moroccan restaurant in Brentwood. The costumes are a bad joke, and look like I Dream of Jeannie cast-offs. Elvis himself spends most of the movie looking foolish (and a bit like a Popsicle) in lime green pants. Add in a ridiculously predictable hand-me-down story about intrigue in the palace of the sultan and a few unfunny minor characters, and there is not much to like here, even for die hard Elvis fans. Even Elvis haters looking for a cheap laugh will find themselves bored by this exercise.

Harum Scarum may not be Elvis's best movie, yet this Elvis movie is very much worth watching because it is a good movie. But more importantly the movies soundtrack is definitely the greatest album ever recorded, and its percussions are still being felt at the present time. For some reason they failed to play "Wisdom Of The Ages" in this Elvis movie and that is so wrong, because if there is one song from the 1960s that represents the 1960s rock & roll sound, its Elvis's song "Wisdom Of The Ages". Elvis's Harum Scarum soundtrack Middle Eastern infusion changed the world of rock & roll forever, and placed Elvis and his band, among the greatest of rock & roll teachers, who include John Lee Hooker and the most important Howlin Wolf. Yes, the Elvis movie Harum Scarum is worth buying to watch and so is that movies soundtrack.

It's very easy to dismiss an Elvis flick with a goofy title like HARUM SCARUM just by hearing it. But I was actually rather surprised by this colorful and unconventional Presley romp. It turned out pretty good for a Presley knock-off, despite the hokum.

Taking Elvis into the odd world of the Middle East is in itself a fresh change of space considering the formulaic nature of his films. It's not high art by any stretch of the imagination, but it's fun. And leading ladies Mary Ann Mobley and Fran Jeffries are gorgeous to behold.

None of the songs are very strong, but there are plenty of them to go around this time.