Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Viva Las Vegas Blu-ray Movie Review

Something Old, Something New

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 7, 2014

For the fiftieth anniversary of Elvis Presley's highest grossing film, Warner Home Video is re-releasing its 2007 Blu-ray of Viva Las Vegas in a DigiBook edition. The disc itself is identical, but it still looks pretty good, even after seven years. The film itself is an Elvis classic, which means that it's short on plot, character and everything else that normally constitutes a movie, but it showcases the King and gives him a co-star worthy of his talents in Ann-Margret. Ironically, she was fresh off her breakthrough performance in Bye Bye Birdie, the musical loosely based on Elvis' own induction into military service. Elvis was so inspired by Ann-Margret that he referred to her privately as "a female Elvis". His protective manager, Col. Tom Parker, fumed that director George Sidney, who had also directed Birdie, was lavishing too much attention on "the girl" and not enough on Elvis, but the results speak for themselves.

Elvis plays an aspiring race car driver named Lucky Jackson, who, in the film's opening sequence, wins enough money at the gambling tables to buy the super-powered engine he needs for the race car he's been building to participate in the first ever Las Vegas Grand Prix. The engine is in Los Angeles, but Lucky spends most of the film not going there to acquire it. The reason? While making the acquaintance of his chief rival in the race, the suave Italian champion Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Danova), Lucky spots the long legs of strawberry blonde Rusty Martin (Ann-Margret). All other plans are put on hold, while Lucky pursues the lady.

The screenwriter for Viva Las Vegas was Sally Benson, who is best known for writing the stories on which Meet Me in St. Louis was based. Either Benson understood her assignment perfectly, or the filmmakers simply jettisoned any part of the script that didn't belong in an Elvis film. The classic Elvis formula was a travelogue featuring the star and the location in about equal measure. So, after Lucky and the Count fail to get Rusty's name or number, what else can they do but embark on an all-night search through every Vegas nightspot, because they naturally assume that a woman as striking as Rusty must be a showgirl? She isn't, but director Sidney takes the opportunity to stage one floor show after another, and Elvis gets to sing "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and "The Eyes of Texas" to calm a rowdy group of Lone Star conventioneers.

Only by accident does Lucky discover that Rusty is really a kids' swimming instructor at one of the resorts, which leads to one of the film's best songs, a duet between Elvis and Ann-Margret entitled "If You Think I Don't Need You". While Rusty's racing partner, Shorty Farnsworth (Nicky Blair), frets over the upcoming Grand Prix deadline, Lucky woos Rusty with occasional (and not terribly serious) competition from the Count. They water-ski, ride Hondas, fly a helicopter over Hoover Dam, cruise the nearby lake and generally have a terrific time for a couple with no money, since Lucky has managed to lose all his gambling winnings in a freak accident. Rusty even forces her new swain to attend her dancing class, where she's the star (because every swim teacher studies dance, right?). Then she insists that he sing to entertain the entire class (because every race car driver croons, right?).

Eventually, as the deadline for entering the race draws near, Shorty miraculously appears with the engine (to be explained at a later date). After a mad dash to install it in the car, Lucky makes the starting line at the last minute. The race sequence serves as the film's action climax, and it holds up remarkably well. The stunts—the real thing—look shockingly dangerous, and the course takes full advantage of the surrounding area's natural production value, including another visit to Hoover Dam. After the race, the film slams to a finish, barely pausing to take a breath.

The title song, "Viva Las Vegas", wasn't a huge hit at the time, but it has since become the town's unofficial theme song, much as the title song from Martin Scorsese's New York, New York was adopted by the Big Apple after Frank Sinatra popularized it. Elvis' rendition is definitive. Equally memorable is his cover of Ray Charles's "What'd I Say". The songs, the scenery and the sparks that fly between Elvis and Ann-Margret (who were having an affair during filming) are still the best things about Viva Las Vegas.

Viva Las Vegas Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Director George Singer brought with him his cinematographer from Bye Bye Birdie, Joseph F. Biroc, an old studio hand whose résumé dated back to It's a Wonderful Life and whom Mel Brooks would later credit for teaching him how to shoot in widescreen on Blazing Saddles. Credit Biroc for the elegant compositions of the many dance numbers, and also for the smoothly photographed auto race that concludes the film, where the tension is generated from holding shots rather than cutting away.

Warner's 1080p, VC-1/encoded Blu-ray may be seven years old, but it holds up reasonably well against more recent catalog presentations. A new transfer might squeeze a touch more detail out of the source material, particularly in long shots, but the image is already quite sharp and detailed for a film shot anamorphically in 1964. The blacks of the men's formal wear are solid and deep, and the colors of Vegas are bright and saturated (though the city of that era has been entirely replaced by huge theme hotels). Both Elvis and Ann-Margret look their best in wardrobes far superior to what either of their characters would be able to afford. The racing cars flash across the screen in their various shades—Lucky's is pale blue—until they're either covered with desert dust or crash and burn beyond recognition. The occasional optical effect is underwhelming, but that reflects the limitations of the era's technology.

Establishing a pattern for the future, Warner left over 6 GB of available space unused on the BD-25 and achieved a low bitrate of 20.42 Mbps. The result is occasional video noise, or what is sometimes called "mosquito noise", usually in large expanses of a similar color and texture like the sky, where a compressionist is shortchanging the image on bandwidth to conserve it for a more demanding scene. Reauthoring the same transfer for a larger disc image (preferably with AVC) would probably have eliminated the problem.

Viva Las Vegas Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Viva Las Vegas was released in mono, but Warner has remixed it in 5.1, which is encoded on Blu-ray in a choice of either Dolby Digital (at 640 kbps) or lossless Dolby TrueHD. Important reminder: As was Warner's habit with its early Blu-rays, the disc defaults to the lossy DD track. You must manually switch to the lossless TrueHD track after playback begins. Fortunately for all of us, Warner long ago abandoned this counterintuitive approach.

The 5.1 remix is conservative and front-oriented, although it greatly improves the reproduction of the studio-recorded songs, for which stereo masters were probably available. As was typically the case in films of this era (and for a long time afterward), the change in vocal quality between the actors' speaking and singing voices is extremely obvious, because the singing voices were recorded with much better quality. Some of the race car effects have decent impact, but on the whole the dynamic range is limited by the age of the soundtrack. The incidental underscoring by MGM's in-house composer, George Stoll, sounds about as good as it possibly can.

Viva Las Vegas Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Since the disc hasn't changed since 2007, neither have its extras. The DigiBook is the only addition. Note that the disc reflects Warner's early style of mastering, in which the film begins playing immediately. The extras can be accessed from either a pop-up or the main menu that appears when you hit "top menu" on your remote.

• Commentary by Steve Pond: The author of Elvis in Hollywood offers general observations on Elvis' film career mixed with specific insights on the making of Viva Las Vegas.



• Kingdom: Elvis in Vegas (480i; 1.85:1, non-enhanced; 20:34): This 2007 featurette offers a well-edited series of interviews with various Elvis experts and confidantes, including commentator Steve Pond, detailing the special relationship that developed between Elvis and Las Vegas, not only during the shooting of Viva Las Vegas, but also later in the singer's career, when Vegas became the scene of his triumphant return to live performance, as reflected in the concert film Elvis: That's the Way It Is.



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2.35:1, enhanced; 3:12): Whatever misgivings Col. Parker may have had, the PR department was smart enough to feature Ann-Margret prominently in the trailer.



• DigiBook: Warner's DigiBook collects vintage publicity stills, behind-the-scenes photos, promotional materials and random facts about Viva Las Vegas (e.g., a list of the locations used in the film).

Viva Las Vegas Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some people like to collect DigiBooks, and for them the new one for Viva Las Vegas should be a welcome addition to their collection. For anyone who doesn't already own the Blu-ray, the DigiBook edition is the one to get. The film itself is classic Elvis, and the Blu-ray is about as good a presentation as we're likely to see. Recommended for fans of the King's films. A blind buy isn't recommended until you have at least sampled an Elvis film or two. They're a genre unto themselves.