SanteeFats This may be the best Elvis movie of them all. There are a lot of good songs and music in this film. Elvis comes back home to Hawaii after two years in the army. He does not want to go to work for his dad at the pineapple plantation he runs so he starts working as a tourist guide. His first set of customers are a youngish teacher escorting four teen girls. So you know things get interesting when the underage ones see Elvis. One is so infatuated with him she throws herself at him. Turned down she steals a jeep, crashes it by the beach, runs into the water (I guess to drown herself). Of course Elvis shows up and rescues her. He administers a spanking which straightens out I guess. The main cast are all proved old timey type actors and do a great job. I did find Angela Lansbury's role to grate some because of the poor Southern accent and the fact that she played Elvis's mother but was only ten years older than him at the time. All in all though this is a very nicely done show with a lot of Hawaiians actually getting real acting parts.

mike48128 The spoiled rich girl gets spanked by Elvis and "Ito Eats" is the worst Elvis song ever. That being said, one of the best of Elvis' films because: 1. It really was filmed in Hawaii, and some of the scenery is gorgeous. 2. Joan Blackman, his Hawaiian girlfriend and fiancé, is also gorgeous. 3. Some of the best songs ever, including "Can't Help Falling in Love With You". Best selling soundtrack of all the Elvis pictures. 4. The restored widescreen version takes the excess "blueness" out of the color tint. 5. The beautiful "Hawaiian Wedding Song" and the wedding at The Coco Palms Resort. They had to "float" the scene twice as the actual lagoon was that short.Negatives: 1. Some really bad acting by most of the supporting actors. Angela Landsbury's accent and acting is atrocious. 2. The houseboy "Ping Pong" is an obvious Aisian stereotype. 3. Elvis'"boss", who went on to play "Floyd the Barber" on "The Andy Griffith Show", is terrible. 4. Many stupid scenes: Ito pigs out at the fishing luau. The spoiled rich girl runs into the ocean to drown herself, followed by that infamous spanking by Elvis. 5.That horrible jailhouse scene with a stupid "Pineapple in the Can" song. 6. Elvis' acting isn't' so hot either. Very wooden.I stayed at The Coca Palms in 1979, and the rooms really did look like exactly like that. The window screens were removed for the filming, but without them, the bugs would eat you alive! It still remains as one of the best Elvis films ever because of the (good) songs and scenery alone.

funkyfry Out of the 3 films Elvis made which were set in Hawaii, this is far and away the best and ranks IMHO in the top 5 of all his films, second best in the 1960s behind only "Viva Las Vegas" which had the advantage of a better co-star. This film is a joy to watch, with lovely on-location photography and some of Elvis' better songs including his classic "Can't Help Falling in Love".The story is a sparse affair concerning Chad, a returned G.I. who wants to make his own way in life but whose overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury, great as usual) wants only to hear of him working in the family's pineapple business. Chad figures out a way to get a job with a tourist agency taking advantage of his knowledge of the islands, but a crisis involving one of his underage charges threatens to cut his new career short.The film itself is better than the average Elvis film, not so much because of any redeeming themes or ideas (i.e. "King Creole") but moreso because the script gives the characters witty dialog and the narrative exposition is just heavy enough to keep the audience interested without becoming absurdly dramatic. For example one line that always gets a laugh from an audience is when Chad is trying to convince the schoolteacher that he will be a good tour guide, and she asks him "Mr Gates, are you sure you can handle a teacher and 4 teenage girls?". Just the line itself gets a laugh. This movie has a lot of humor that works very well, it's not like you're sitting there saying "oh look at what Elvis is doing"; a lot of the comedy are situations that would be funny with any decent comedian. Here, as in just a few of his later films like "Follow that Dream", Elvis gets to show he has real ability and good timing for comedy.The narrative structure itself is fairly effective in terms of drawing the audience in -- always a tough job with a story that has so little action and drama. First we're presented with a fairly standard parents vs. kid dramatic story as described above, and then when we meet the tourists there is another important character, the teenage tease Ellie Corbett. She's a rich kid's daughter who feels unloved and is a bit of a JD if you know what I mean. She doesn't want to go see the pineapple farm, she doesn't want to learn to surf, and she doesn't want to attend a hookie-lau. The audience perhaps identifies with her in some sense, and the elements in the audience that want to resist the urge to enjoy this Hawaiian treat are overcome by way of Ms. Corbett's objections being gradually over-ruled. Also she represents a key in the narrative for Chad -- although she initially creates a romantic confusion between Chad and his girlfriend, eventually it's Chad's ability to reach out to her that proves his maturity and his ability at his job. This takes his character beyond the parent vs. child dichotomy and into the world of maturity, where we leave him.

dbdumonteil .... as far as Elvis's adventures in the movies are concerned.All that he did before is worth a watch :"love me tender" "flaming star" "jailhouse rock" "king creole" are exciting movies even if you are not a big Elvis fan."Wild in the country" was inferior but it had at least a decent screenplay.The slump begins with "Blue Hawai" .The talented directors (Richard Thorpe,Don Siegel...) were replaced by Norman Taurog who would become Elvis's regular one.OK,Hawai's pictures are nice,there is Angela Landsbury.The songs are weaker than in the previous flicks:the only memorable tune is "can't help falling in love" based on an old French folk song "Plaisir D'Amour" (=joys of love).You'd better take one of the movies I mention above,particularly Don Siegel's "Flaming Star".