Spinout (1966)

Take Elvis Presley and put him into a plot involving music, race cars, and girls, and you'd have a winning formula at the box office in 1966 -- that's the easiest way to explain Spinout (and, for that matter, Speedway, made a couple of years later) to anyone who wasn't around at the time. The movie actually functions as a pop-culture artifact on several levels: it's the next-to-last film production of musical/musical-comedy specialist Joe Pasternak (whose career went back to the 1920s) -- but the screenplay was co-authored by director/satirist Theodore J. Flicker; the cast includes '50s TV veteran Will Hutchins, future Emmy-winner Carl Betz (cast alongside his longtime TV daughter Shelley Fabares, once again playing his daughter), and veteran performers Cecil Kellaway and Una Merkel; and the movie shows off Elvis using an array of decidedly up-to-date equipment in his band, including a cool-looking 12-string guitar and a double-necked instrument that just might be the first use of such a guitar onscreen in a feature film. Oh, and the presence of some great second-unit material -- essentially all of the racing sequences -- only enhances the value of an otherwise fairly routine, if complicated, romantic comedy/musical. The latter aspect includes an operetta-like plot involving mismatched romantic couples, a father who wants the hero as an employee but not as a son-in-law, and a daughter who feels differently. It's all lighthearted enough so that anyone with the patience will likely love this picture as unassuming entertainment. Serious Elvis Presley fans can add a star to its potential appeal, and Hollywood mavens a half-star. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide