Cinema: The Way-Out West

• Share

Viva Las Vegas has the wholesome, mindless spontaneity it takes to create a successful Elvis Presley movie. This one gambles on hips, not chips. Chorus girls scamper through such neon fleshpots as the Stardust, Flamingo, Tropicana and Sahara, and Elvis himself, as wrinkleproof an example of modern packaging as anyone has yet produced, sings, dances, swims, water-skis, flies a helicopter and finally enters his baby-blue racing car in a big, exciting race referred to as the Las Vegas Grand Free.

First, though, he meets Ann-Margret, who wriggles by the garage to coo: "I'd like you to check my motor." Once her motor turns over, it seldom stops. Neither does the movie, mostly because Ann-Margret—whose scanty wardrobe suggests that she draws her energy directly from the sun—gyrates with a stem-to-stern fury that makes Presley's pelvic r.p.m.s seem powered by a flashlight battery. Ann-Margret isn't worried about his sacrum, she is afraid he'll break his neck in the Grand Pree. But no. They enter a talent contest and tie for first prize—a prepaid honeymoon in Las Vegas. Since they are already there, the picture ends in a hurry.