Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [109]
As Dunnock told the story, the director finally said, “Everything seems ready, so let’s rehearse it one time.” Elvis said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Webb.”
Then the director took Elvis through it, saying, “In this scene, the Yankees come by horse up into the backyard, which you can see from your window upstairs. You come down and go to the window and see those Yankees kill your brother. You go to the sideboard, open the drawer, and pull out a gun. You start across that floor to go meet those damn Yankees, and end of scene.”
“Yes, sir,” Elvis said confidently.
“The Yankees are going to rap on the door,” Webb continued. “I’ll go, ‘Ready, lights, shoot,’ then I’ll make a knocking sound, and that’s your cue to come down those stairs. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Webb called for action, and rapped out the knock.
In Dunnock’s retelling, “Elvis came down those stairs, went to that sideboard, took out that gun, and when I said my line, ‘Put that gun down, son!,’ well, he dropped it right away. Mr. Webb said, ‘Cut! Cut! Oh, my God, what are you doing? You’re supposed to keep on going!’ Elvis said, ‘She told me to put it down.’ ”
Most actresses of Dunnock’s caliber would have held her head, livid at having to put up with so inexperienced an actor. But Elvis had gotten to the real mother in her, and she chose to frame his blunder as an asset.
“You see, for the first time he heard me. Before, he was just thinking about what he was doing and how he was going about it. It’s a funny story, [but] I also think it’s a story about a beginner who had the first requirement of acting, which is to believe in what you’re doing.”
Though Elvis hoped he would play the part as a straight dramatic role, and do no singing, Colonel Parker dashed that dream straightaway. Seeing how Hollywood’s The Blackboard Jungle spurred the chart-topping success of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” the year before, the Colonel insisted that Fox and RCA make the most of a similar opportunity. Parker had no faith that Elvis would amount to anything as an actor and got him involved with motion pictures primarily as a vehicle to sell records.
The Ken Darby Trio was part of the session team that replaced Scotty Moore and Bill Black on the soundtrack—the producers found their Memphis sound far too raw—and Darby wrote all four songs for the film, including “Love Me Tender,” a massaging of the Civil War ballad “Aura Lee,” written by W. W. Fosdick and George R. Poulton. The Colonel, intending to bleed every penny out of the film, insisted that Elvis be cut in as a songwriter. So Darby officially credited “Love Me Tender,” which inspired the title change of the picture, to both Elvis and Vera Matson, Darby’s wife. The singer hadn’t written one bar of it. But he now had a music publishing company administered by Parker’s old friends, the brothers Julian and Jean Aberbach.
Critics would point out that Elvis’s dance steps during the three remaining songs, “We’re Gonna Move,” “Let Me,” and “Poor Boy,” were totally wrong for the period and made the scenes seem out of place. But Elvis fans didn’t care—they wanted to see him move. The title track became an instant hit, the single lodging in the number one spot for five weeks in November and December 1956, and the accompanying EP reaching number thirty-five. The Colonel was happy, and Weisbart was, too: The film made back its $1 million budget within three days.
Elvis was proud to do the title song because it showed a side of him that had all but disappeared. “People think all I can do is belt,” Elvis told reporter Army Archerd, breaking into a sample of the song. “I used to sing nothing but ballads before I went professional. I love ballads.” But he was ticked about not being able to use Scotty and Bill on