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Plot Summary
Elvis Presley, the undisputed King of rock 'n' roll, stars in this fun-filled musical romance as a crop-dusting pilot who is escorted through the Seattle World's Fair by a cute Chinese girl and falls in love with a beautiful woman. Look for the screen debut of Kurt Russell ("Executive Decision," "Stargate"). Co-starring Gary Lockwood ("2001: A Space Odyssey").
Customer Reviews
It Happened at The World's Fair
Very eccentric movie. "It Happened at The World's Fair" shows a caring, sweet side of Elvis seldom seen in his movies! Elvis at his best!
Different, not the greatest Elvis movie, but it still made me smile :)
Initially I was afraid this had set yet another Elvis precedent: "Okay, so this time he's a pilot who flies a cropduster AND he's a professional singer on the side? Again?" That didn't turn out to be the case, thank goodness. Elvis owes some heavy debts, but his idiot gambling friend and co-pilot Danny blows their latest paycheck at a cheating card table, with a typical fist fight ensuing. Their plane and one asset is repossessed to be auctioned off unless they can find the money to buy it back, and Elvis's dalliances with a young woman are shot when an angry father chases him off at gunpoint. Quite broke now, they hitchhike a ride with a nice apple farmer and his niece Sue-Lin, and they all proceed to Seattle.
At this point quite a bit goes on: Danny tries to gamble his covert way to money while Elvis plays babysitter to Sue-Lin (whose uncle conveniently disappears), escorting her around the World's Fair and quickly getting hooked on the nurse at the medical facility there. There aren't any sporadic, weird moments that jump us with an irrelevant song here as they do in many Elvis vehicles. The script and plot, except the implausibility of the farmer entrusting his niece to a stranger (Elvis) within the first couple hours of meeting (I mean, who leaves their kid with a stranger for an entire day, and at the World's Fair of all places?), is also quite decent, considering this is another Taurog film.
What I found refreshing was that - wait for it - there were NO beaches, no suffocatingly exotic locations, no silly excuse for bikini crowds of lobotomized girls, and while he does sing in this, it's NOT as a professional stage singer. Sigh of relief! His character is more of a fasty in this one though (jumping ship from Yvonne Craig to Joan O'Brien in one day and all), but the nurse doesn't fall much for him at all, which brings about the incredible, the impossible: Elvis, for the first time in all of his films, is the one doing the pursuing! Desperate pursuing too, pretending to have an eye problem and paying a kid (a young Kurt Russell) to kick him in the shins. History indeed.
Besides his skirt-chasing obligations (because it's always innocent in the end, right?), he's more innately kind in this, always looking out for Sue-Lin, buying her too much fair food, singing her songs and engaging in an after hours break-in at the Fair to rescue her. Oh, and there's a shadowy bad guy who appears at some point with a job offer transferring illegal furs (cue fist fight with the police, as usual, arriving late), Sue-Lin is seized by the welfare department (Danny's fault, but all goes well), the uncle reappears again (his truck flipping over kept him comfortably out of the frame the majority of the time), Elvis gets the plane and finally gets the nurse. All nicely tied up and concluded in a way that only family-friendly fluffies can.
The songs are all in his smooth, post-RnR '60's style, which is to say I find them just as enjoyable as his earliest Sun Records days. "One Broken Heart For Sale" is a gem (just wish they'd used the Jordanaires instead of the Mello Men, oh well), as is "Relax," "I'm Falling in Love Tonight," "World of Our Own" and, just because I personally liked them, "Cotton Candy Land," "How Would You Like To Be" and "Happy Ending."
Hey iTunes, how about getting up Follow That Dream and Change of Habit, huh? I'm surprised you put up the lousy Kissin' Cousins for download but you deprive us of two stellar Elvis movies. What gives?
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- $14.99
- Genre: Musicals
- Released: 1963
- © 1963 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.