When Netflix announced Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley, my first thought was dread. Would this be the documentary that drains the urgency from the Elvis biopic Hollywood inexplicably has yet to make: the one centered on the drama, sweat, and swagger of the 1968 comeback special? Thankfully, director Jason Hehir (The Last Dance) leaves enough meat on the bone for some future auteur to gnaw on.
The streaming service bills the film as “the true story behind” the show that resurrected Presley’s career, but after an electric five-minute intro featuring a taut silhouette ready to take the stage at NBC Studios, the next hour of this brisk 90-minute doc dives into familiar Elvis mythology. We start, predictably, in 1954 with a baby-faced Elvis cutting “That’s All Right” at Sun Records, then tumble through the usual milestones. There’s the shy country boy from Tupelo who was inspired by black bluesmen; the hip-shaking heartthrob who sent teenage girls into paroxysms and PTA meetings into moral panic; the reluctant soldier stationed in Germany, the welcome home show with Sinatra, and, inevitably, the Hollywood star cranking out a string of god-awful sound-stage musicals at the behest of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
The material is packaged with a sleek, high-production gloss befitting a Netflix release, featuring sharp editing, cinematic cutaways, and an eclectic cast of talking heads, from Priscilla Presley and Memphis Mafia stalwart Jerry Schilling to the Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, Bruce Springsteen, and — why not? — comedian Conan O’Brien. It’s certainly a step up from those 1990s infomercials that doubled as mini biodocs, hawking greatest-hits CDs — yours for just $59.99 in three easy installments, but only if you dialed 1-800-PRESLEY right now.
The film’s highlight emerges about 45 minutes in, as Schilling and Priscilla, seated in the dim glow of a home projector, visibly disheartened, confront the absurdity of the King of Rock n’ Roll singing “Old MacDonald” in the 1967 fiasco Double Trouble (and if you thought that was bad, watching Elvis serenade the Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce will make you cringe you so hard, your family may need to have you carbon-dated). The candid moment underscores what Quentin Tarantino lamented in Cinema Speculation: Presley, who aspired to be like Marlon Brando, certainly had the charisma to be one of the great leading men of the 1960s. But, as the documentary shows, he never flexed those dramatic muscles. Instead, the voracious Elvis Industrial Complex churned out confections like Girls! Girls! Girls! and Harum Scarum, leaving tantalizing exceptions like Don Siegel’s Flaming Star as hints of what might have been had the assembly line not proven so irresistibly lucrative.
Shortly thereafter, we’re back to the ’68 Special. But oddly, Steven Binder, who directed it for NBC, doesn’t appear until an hour into the documentary. Stranger still, ESPN’s Wright Thompson dominates the narration, talking far more than anyone directly connected to the show. The final 25 minutes are a mix of Elvis tearing through hits like “Trouble” and “If I Can Dream,” sprinkled with anecdotes about his showtime jitters and reminders that he looked cooler than any human ever has — or ever will — in that black leather suit.
We briefly hear from an audience member who attended the taping, but the film generally glides past the kind of delightful oddities that give stories like these their spark. Like how NBC staff, having completely forgotten to invite an audience, frantically scoured local diners at the eleventh hour to recruit unsuspecting patrons with the once-in-a-lifetime promise of meeting Elvis Presley that very afternoon (as chronicled in Peter Guralnick’s Careless Love). You might not know this was one of the most pivotal moments in TV music history if not for a closing title card dryly informing us it was NBC’s highest-rated program of the year, drawing 43 percent of American viewers. It’s a remarkable fact, delivered with all the fanfare of a collect call from Provo.
The pacing is nimble, but stronger storytelling — peppered with first-hand accounts, archival footage of his legion of fans reacting to the ’68 Special, the headlines it made, and the excitement it sparked in America’s living rooms — would have made Return of the King hit like a steamroller, baby. For a film that goes out of its way — twice, no less — to shout that we’re talking about “Elvis ‘F***ing’ Presley,” it could do more to capture the stakes of the moment. How, without the ’68 special, Elvis might have slipped into the fog of cultural nostalgia, a relic of a bygone era. Instead, this was the moment that etched his likeness onto the Mt. Rushmore of 20th-century pop music.
As a polished trip down memory lane, Return of the King gets the job done. It’s more than boomer bait. But with a little more burning love, it could have opened Graceland’s gates to a new generation — and reminded the rest of us why we still make the pilgrimage.
(Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley is now available on Netflix)