But don't anybody make any remarks like "Gee, you sure look funny with the blond wig on." On a more serious level, Glenda Farrell, who plays Ma Tatum in the film, broke her neck during a scene where she was supposed to flip Elvis off a porch and spent the rest of the shoot in a brace except for her scenes before the camera. Elvis feels that he looks odd in the blond wig and really he doesn't have the guts to get up and get out here yet. I figured other things were happening and I said to (director) Gene Nelson, 'What's the hang-up this morning? And Gene said, 'Well, it's a problem. He didn't want to come out of the dressing room with the blond wig on. Co-star Yvonne Craig said (in Elvis by Jerry Hopkins), "It was really traumatic for him. There was also the famous wig dilemma the Jodie character had dirty blonde hair like Elvis' natural color before he started dying it black so a special hairpiece was created for Elvis to wear in those scenes. At one point, Nelson recalled, "the Colonel came on the set with an old-fashioned white car coat all the way down to his ankles, with the names of all of Elvis' pictures sewed on it and a funny hat, and he walked in and said, "Well, fellas, what do you think of this?" Just, you know, trying to get us to relax and forget about whatever it was we were angry about." Still, there was considerable tension between Katzman and Nelson over the daily shooting schedule. I thanked him and said to hang in, it was my problem." So, to keep the shoot from becoming a chore, Presley and his pals would distract themselves, staging lots of pranks and water balloon fights. He said he knew what kind of pressure I was under, and he volunteered to get sick or show up late if it would help. He came to me the last week and said he didn't like to work this way, it wasn't worth it. In Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick, actor turned director Gene Nelson recalled, "I'd get uptight - and this upset Elvis.
As a result, Kissin' Cousins is considered the first true "low budget" Elvis movie and the King wasn't too pleased with the rushed pace of the filming. Viva Las Vegas had gone way over budget so Colonel Parker, Elvis' manager, wanted to make sure the same thing didn't happen here.
If this sounds suspiciously like the plot of Li'l Abner, we have to remind you that the latter didn't have the Kittyhawks, thirteen man-starved women from the backwoods who are partial to gifts of free underwear from the armed forces.įilmed immediately after Viva Las Vegas (1964), Kissin' Cousins was the first Elvis movie produced by Sam "King of the Quickies" Katzman, who proved his moniker by completing the film in a record seventeen days. The reason these two Elvises come together is because Josh has a mission and it's to convince Tennessee moonshiner Arthur O'Connell to let the military build a secret rocket base in the backwoods. (Of course, in real life, Elvis really did have a twin brother but he died at birth). The one in the Air Force uniform is Josh and the one with the dirty blonde hair is his hillbilly cousin, Jodie. In the King's fourteenth feature, Kissin' Cousins (1964), we've got two Elvis Presleys for the price of one. Josh and Azalea also find themselves in love. Meanwhile, Jodie has fallen in love with Midge, a WAC sent to help Josh with paperwork, and Sergeant Bailey, Josh's buddy, has fallen for Selena. Josh rescues Tatum, and when General Healy arrives from the Pentagon, Josh tells him that Tatum will lease the land for the base if the government will keep trespassers-including the hated "revenooers"-off his part of the land. When Tatum gets lost hunting, Josh takes out a patrol to look for him, but they are hindered by the Kittyhawks, 13 man-starved women from a nearby valley. Josh has a hard time trying to placate Tatum while trying to cool the romantic ardor of his two daughters, Selena and Azalea, at the same time.
Josh turns out to be an exact double, except for hair color, of Tatum's nephew Jodie, and it is discovered that he is their distant cousin. The Air Force then sends Josh Morgan, who was born in the area, to talk with Tatum. The Air Force wants to build an ICBM base atop Big Smoky Mountain in Tennessee, but each time they try to talk to Pappy Tatum, a hillbilly moonshiner who owns the land they need, he greets them with gunfire.