Fun in Acapulco (1963)

Touches You

hyped garbage

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Released in 1963, "Fun in Acapulco" stars Elvis Presley as a lifeguard/singer at a ritzy Mexican resort who stirs the interest of two women and rivalry of a Mexican diver. As with most of Elvis' movies, he sings a song every 7-12 minutes.While the story takes place in Acapulco and a lot of scenes were shot at a resort there, Elvis never set foot in Mexico during filming, presumably due to his busy schedule. This becomes clear as you watch the movie: Several cast members clearly shot some scenes at the actual resort (Ursula Andress, Elsa Cárdenas and Alejandro Rey), but whenever interaction with Elvis is required, out comes the rear-projection. Some good examples include Presley's bike ride with the Mexican kid, Elvis & Ursula along the street and every shot with Elvis and another character sitting or standing near a wall overlooking the ocean. The film is such a lark and rear-projection was so prevalent back then that the movie works in spite of this, but it was definitely noticeable and therefore excessive.As far as the women go, forget Marguerita (Andress) and Delores (Cárdenas) (as fine as they are), I'll take Janie (Teri Hope), the petite blond on the boat at the beginning. She had the requisite curves.The film runs 97 minutes.GRADE: C

Hello!? And they actually called this dismal, 1963, movie - "Fun In Acapulco"!?.... Oh? Really? Well, it sure didn't come across as being "fun" to me. No way.And, let me tell ya - Once it was established that Elvis's sidekick (for comedy relief) in the story was going to be a 10-year-old brat named Raoul, I just knew that the so-called "fun" in this flick was gonna go nowhere, fast.And, speaking about the sexual chemistry between Presley and Swiss beauty, Ursula Andress - Well - To be honest, there wasn't any chemistry, at all.And, what about the 11 songs that Elvis sang for his adoring fans?.... (Answer) - Totally forgettable, one and all.And, finally - On top of all of my other complaints - This decidedly dull-edged, "boy-meets-girl", musical/comedy lost itself even more points for the filming of far too many of the outdoor scenes in the story with the actors obviously posing in front of back-projection screens..... Sheesh! This film certainly didn't win me over as an Elvis Presley fan. Nope. It sure didn't.

"Fun in Acapulco" was one of a number of musical comedies made by Elvis Presley during the sixties, and follows what was a common formula in Elvis's movies- a setting in a popular tourist resort, attractive scenery, equally attractive girls, and a string of easy-listening tunes, often with an ethnic flavour. Although Elvis was still a good-looking twenty-something in 1963, in career terms he was middle-aged, the wild young rocker of the fifties having been replaced by a more family-friendly crooner. Just as much of the music in "Blue Hawaii" had a vaguely Hawaiian tinge, much of the music here has a distinctive Latin flavour. (Not exclusively Mexican; the film's best-known number is "Bossa Nova Baby", and the bossa nova was from Brazil, not Mexico).The plot is essentially a love-triangle involving Elvis's character Mike Windgren and two pretty girls, a female bullfighter named Dolores and Margarita, the daughter of the chef at the hotel where Mike works as a lifeguard and singer; the triangle develops into a quadrilateral when it turns out that Margarita already has a boyfriend, another lifeguard named Moreno. Neither Margarita nor her father is, in fact, Mexican; they are supposed to be aristocratic refugees from some unnamed Eastern European state. Perhaps this detail was inserted to placate that section of American public opinion which refuses to believe that the gene for blonde hair can be found anywhere south of the Rio Grande, or perhaps Ursula Andress's accent was just too obviously Central European to make her credible as a Latina. We also learn that Mike was previously an acrobat in a family circus act and lost his nerve after accidentally killing his brother during a performance; part of his reason for being in Mexico is to try and regain his courage and self-respect by taking part in a cliff-diving contest.The Presley Formula did not necessarily demand great acting or great plots, and "Fun in Acapulco" has neither. Plot lines involving fratricide, even accidental fratricide, do not sit well with light-hearted musical comedy, and the ramifications of the love-quadrilateral are never really resolved. The main problem is the character of Margarita, who is blatantly two-timing Moreno with Mike but gets furiously angry whenever Mike shows any interest in Dolores. To make such a hellcat sympathetic would tax the skills of even the most gifted actress, and although Andress was one of Hollywood's hottest properties following her appearance in "Dr No" the previous year, she was far from gifted. Her obvious physical attributes are much on display here; her acting talents are kept well hidden. Her main qualification for film stardom, apart from her looks, was the fact that she was the second wife of the influential director John Derek, who was later also to make a star of his even less talented fourth wife Bo.Elvis himself is content to stroll through the movie, relying on his charm and his singing voice rather than his acting. Elsa Cárdenas as Dolores is rather better, but the actor who really stands out is young Larry Domasin as Raoul, the Mexican boy who befriends Mike and acts as his manager. (The name is spelt as "Raoul" in the cast-list, although the normal Spanish spelling would be "Raul"). I felt rather sorry for Moreno, having to put up with so much from Margarita, but Alejandro Rey plays him as the villain of the piece, an arrogant, swaggering Latino bully who is put in his place by the quieter, more modest Anglo-Saxon Mike. Ethnic stereotypes are not confined to the characterisation; local colour is provided by endless references to bullfighting, tequila, mariachi music and the desire of Mexican residents to emigrate to the USA.The music is easy on the ear and whatever one may think of Ursula's acting skills one cannot deny that she is equally easy on the eye. Besides Andress and Cardenas, the film features a third glamour girl in the shape of Teri Hope who plays a sexually precocious teenager similar to the one played by Jenny Maxwell in "Blue Hawaii", rather odd casting given that Hope was 24 at the time and had appeared as a Playboy pin-up five years earlier. (Contrary to what one reviewer thought, Teri Hope and Teri Garr are two different people). There are also some attractive travelogue-type shots of the Mexican scenery, although Elvis himself apparently never went to Acapulco; all his scenes were shot in Hollywood."Fun in Acapulco" was the top grossing movie musical of 1963, at a time when musicals were much more in vogue than they are today, so the Presley Formula was obviously a successful one in its day. It did not, however, produce any films of lasting significance, and like most of Elvis's films from the sixties, this one today has the look of a dated curiosity. 5/10

I sincerely believe that Elvis' first movies were commendable ;They had true screenplays and were directed by Thorpe,Siegel or Curtiz.The most deeply moving is perhaps " flaming star" which dealt with the loss of a mother -at a time the singer lost his-;the motherless child was again the main character of " wild in the country" ,but this latter work was marred by making Elvis an A student and a lit genius!It was the second time Richard Thorpe had directed Elvis and ,like other users have pointed it out ,it's much inferior to the previous effort "jailhouse rock" .IMHO,his career in the movies ended in 1961. "Fun in Acapulco" is just what the title means : swimming,diving,rivalry between the hero and another lifeguard,plus a "secret"(short flashback) :it's the only thing which is not derivative,if you know about Elvis ' birth:Jesse Garon Presley, his identical twin brother, was delivered 35 minutes before him, stillborn.He was reportedly haunted by this loss during all his life.As for the songs ,with the staggering exception of "bossa nova baby" -two precious minutes ,the great rocker was born again- they were written for a Latin crooner ,not for the King;honestly,what can he do in the face of material like "no room to rumba in a sports car"?