An Elvis Movie: "Tickle Me"

Like many people, I have a number of "guilty pleasures", and I am willing to own up to many of them.  One of those guilty pleasures are cheesy Elvis Presley movies, and last night, thanks to TCM and my DVR, I was able to watch one of my favorites from the Elvis oeuvre, "Tickle Me", released in 1965.

In this one, Elvis plays out of work rodeo rider Lonnie Beal.  To make ends meet while waiting for the rodeo season to begin, Lonnie takes a job singing (what else) in a saloon in some out of the way desert town somewhere out west.  The job lasts one night because a drunken patron's girlfriend swoons over Lonnie (of course she does) and gets into a fist fight (of course he does) with him and pretty much wrecks the joint.  By the way, this was the first of, I believe five fist fights (I honestly lost count) that Lonnie gets into over the course of the movie.  That's high even by Elvis Movie standards.

Not to worry, though, because another customer, Vera Radford (Julie Adams) takes a shine to Lonnie (of course she does), and hires him to work with the horses on her ranch.  

Julie Adams and Elvis

The ranch turns out to be a spa/dude ranch for rich women to lose weight and stay in shape for their rich husbands.  You can see what happens, right?  All the women fall for the handsome Lonnie and his penchant to break out in song (nine songs over the course of the ninety minute movie) at the drop of a cowboy hat.  Complications ensue.

Of course, only one woman catches Lonnie's eye, and that is Pam Merritt (Jocelyn Lane), the ranch's exercise instructor, and she 

Jocelyn Lane

has no use (of course she doesn't) for a "saddle tramp" like Lonnie Beal.  This is how we first meet Pam as she leads her exercise class.  No wonder she catches Lonnie's eye!

Lonnie meets Pam

Love at first sight, and who can blame him!

Anyway, there is a sub-plot to this movie that involves Pam's looking for a treasure in gold which her grandfather left hidden in some desert ghost town, and a bunch of bad guys who are after her because they want to steal the Old Man's gold.  The plot doesn't really matter as it just serves as a flimsy excuse for Elvis to sing a bunch of songs, be chased by a bunch of bikini clad women, and get into fist fights as he pursues, and eventually - spoiler alert! - wins over the beautiful Pam.

The movie was directed by Norman Taurog, who directed a whole bunch of Elvis movies and Jerry Lewis movies, and written by two guys who devoted much of their careers to writing for the Three Stooges, and that pretty much tells you all you need to know about what this one is all about.

By regular movie standards, this gets maybe One Star from The Grandstander, but by Elvis Movie Standards, it gets Two and One-half Stars.

As I often do after seeing one of these epics, I did some research on Elvis' leading lady in this one, Jocelyn Lane.  She was born in Austria in 1937 (she will turn 82 next month!), went to school in New York City, but her family moved to England when she was fourteen.  She became a model and a cover girl before she was recruited to act in movies.  Undeniably beautiful, she was dubbed the "British Bardot", and you can find lots of photos of her like this on your Google Machine.

You can also find one that she did for Playboy back in the '60's, but, as is my policy, I am keeping The Grandstander family friendly.

She has 42 acting credits listed in IMDB, and her acting career pretty much dried up after 1970.  She married a Spanish prince, had a daughter, got divorced, and has never remarried.  Like I said, she turns 82 next month. I hope that she is living comfortably and in good health.

These kinds of things just tickle me (so to speak).