Over the years, Kissin’ Cousins has grown on me—sort of. Elvis Presley’s fourteenth feature film, which airs next Sunday (March 30) on TCM at 8:30am, is a musical comedy that is even more ridiculous than most of his films. And yet, Kissin’ Cousins manages to be interesting—sort of. It is the only one of his 31 narrative films to feature the King in a dual role. In KC, Elvis stars as dark-haired Josh Morgan, a member of the Air Force aerobatic team the Shooting Stars, and blonde Jody Tatum, a member of the hillbilly Tatum clan of rural Tennessee. Josh finds out that he is a distant cousin to Pappy Tatum, so he is assigned to persuade the stubborn patriarch into allowing the Air Force to build a missile base on his mountain. While the story doesn’t seem like it would inspire much to sing about, the 96-minute film includes eight musical production numbers.
Kissin’ Cousins marks an important but dubious point in Elvis’s Hollywood career. The musical is his first film with Sam Katzman, known as “the King of the Quickies.” Katzman had been producing low-budget, rock ‘n’ roll musicals since the 1950s, and he was notorious for his short shooting schedules and penny-pinching methods. Of course, this doesn’t mean that his films are not entertaining or enjoyable; I love his teen musicals (Get Yourself a College Girl; Twist Around the Clock) as well as some of his other productions (Your Cheatin’ Heart). But, when Elvis’s manager, the equally notorious Colonel Tom Parker, teamed up with Katzman, it represented a turning point for Parker’s approach to Elvis’s film career. Parker was unhappy with Elvis’s previous film, MGM’s Viva Las Vegas—which would be released after Kissin’ Cousins—because its budget surpassed a million dollars, and it went over its shooting schedule. He felt that the money spent to ensure high-quality production values was unnecessary. Though Elvis would make only two films for Katzman, thereafter, Colonel pursued deals with other small production companies, because he was determined to keep production costs down and increase Elvis’s salary by asking for a percentage of the profits. He also learned other methods for decreasing production costs, which he employed on Kissin’ Cousins. While on location near Big Bear Lake in California, he struck deals with local hotels and restaurants to put up the cast and crew at a cut rate in exchange for promotional opportunities.
INSIDE THE TATUMS’ MOUNTAIN SHACK
Yet, it is not the film’s low-budget sensibility that makes me squirm a bit. It’s the setting for the narrative. Kissin’ Cousins paints some of the worst stereotypes of rural Southern culture in all of Hollywood cinema. The title itself hints at cousins cavorting with cousins, which is a common joke about “hillbillies,” while the characters are outrageous to say the least. Pappy Tatum manufactures moonshine; Mammy Tatum prepares meals out of possum tails and owl gizzards; daughters Selena and Azalea are barefoot and scantily clad. The decrepit Tatum shack is decorated with catalogue pages and a Confederate flag. And, then there are the Kittyhawks—a band of 13 oversexed, underdressed women who trap and kidnap unsuspecting males for the purpose of marriage—among other things. As one of the taglines for the film noted: “Them Kittyhawks come swooping down on poor, unsuspecting soldiers.” Every performer speaks in that exaggerated rural Southern accent that you so often find in movies about the poor South. The exception is Elvis, who speaks in his natural, real Southern accent. Kissin’ Cousins is actually a poor man’s Li’l Abner, the film version of the musical based on Al Capp’s satirical comic strip. From the exaggerated stereotypes to the military-missile-site plot, the similarities are likely no accident.
DOUBLE ELVISES
ELVIS IN HIS BLONDE WIG BETWEEN TAKES WITH PAMELA AUSTIN AND YVONNE CRAIG
What is odd is that Elvis would appear at all in a film based on Southern archetypes/stereotypes. After Elvis was released from the army, there was a deliberate effort to broaden his appeal to mainstream audiences—not only in terms of his movie image but also his music. Part of the reason was because of the barrage of criticism aimed at him at the beginning of his career. During the 1950s, his Southern background provided ammunition for attacks in the press on everything from his character to his “gyrating” performance style. Constant references to his sound as a strange form of “hillbilly” music dogged him as he toured. Time magazine described it as having a “moronic lyric in a hillbilly idiom,” while Life claimed that Elvis was “a howling hillbilly success.” Newsweek was determined to strike down “the Hillbilly on a Pedestal” by repeating ridiculous rumors that he sold dope and had been in jail. The article also ridiculed his 1956 Vegas appearance by describing it as “something like a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party.” No magazine or newspaper could resist making fun of his accent by phonetically spelling out his accented words. Under a photo of Elvis performing, a caption in Time read, “Hi luh-huh-huh-huv yew-hew.” In spelling out how the singer pronounced his lyrics, reporters linked his accent with a lack of education and taste. His hair and sideburns, which were attributed to the way Southern truck drivers wore their hair, was regularly referred to as “dirty.” In his 1950s films, Elvis played characters that echoed real-life events from his own career as a way to lure his fans to the box office. Except for Love Me Tender, he played singers from the South who experienced problems introducing a new style of music aimed at “the kids.”
ELVIS WITH DIRECTOR GENE NELSON
Elvis’s stint in the army from 1958-1960 provided an opportunity for producer Hal Wallis (who had signed Elvis to a contract), agent Abe Lastfogel from William Morris, and Colonel Tom Parker to alter the rebellious, controversial image that the press had constructed for him during the 1950s. When Elvis appeared in G.I. Blues, Girls, Girls, Girls and Blue Hawaii in 1960-61, he looked like a mature leading man and sounded like a pop singer. The “howling hillbilly” had disappeared.
A scant four years later, he was starring in a dual role in Kissin’ Cousins. His character Josh Morgan is not one of the exotic Tatum clan and therefore “normal,” but gun-totin’, girl-happy Jodie is definitely Josh’s hillbilly doppelganger. The film seems a surprising choice considering how much his Southern identity added to the bad publicity just a few years earlier. Perhaps it did not occur to the Colonel that he might be revisiting past problems, while producer Hal Wallis, who had constructed and evolved Elvis’s screen image, had no input on this film, because it was made for Katzman. Or, maybe the cartoonish characterizations of the mountain culture of Appalachia were so broad that no one thought of them as a threat.
Other factors make Kissin’ Cousins interesting—sort of. While the songs feature ridiculous lyrics (like the toe-counting in “Barefoot Ballad”), the production numbers are actually energetic and fun. This is likely the influence of Gene Nelson, who directed this film as well as Harum Scarum, Elvis’s other musical for Katzman. Nelson had been a singer-dancer in musicals during the 1950s, costarring with Doris Day. His biggest success was the film version of Oklahoma, in which he twirled a lariat while dancing to “Kansas City.” Nelson was given only 15 days to shoot Kissin’ Cousins and drew a bit of heat when he went over by two days. The final budget was $800,000. In publicity for the film, Katzman greatly exaggerated the budget, claiming he was spending over $1.7 million. He also bragged about how much he liked to cut corners on his movies: “I’m a Woolworth guy—not a Tiffany man.”
THE KITTYHAWKS IN BIKINIS–PURCHASED FOR THEM BY THE ARMY–ARE A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH.
A few scenes are just so bizarre they are worth mentioning. The army treats Selena and Azalea to a shopping spree at a dress shop, where they buy bikinis, because, apparently, their tight, low-cut shirts weren’t skimpy enough. But, the best part is that the girls also purchase underwear and bathing suits for the Kittyhawks—on the army’s dime—and distribute the clothing from the back of jeep while they themselves are in their bikinis. I don’t know what is more strange: Women in bikinis distributing something from the back of a jeep, or the fact that one of the Kittyhawks is played by Maureen Reagan, Ronald Reagan’s oldest daughter. Reagan dated Gene Nelson for a while, though I am not sure if he did her a favor by casting her in this film.
A YOUNG MAUREEN REAGAN PLAYS A KITTYHAWK.
Though Elvis never traveled outside of North America, he garnered an international fan base. Just before Kissin’ Cousins was shot in the fall of 1963, the first Elvis Presley Club opened in Pakistan. Over 700 Pakistani youths joined the club, which according to one newspaper article sent “a seismic shock throughout this Moslem [sic] country.” One weekly newspaper charged that the club would encourage members to “wholesale western waywardness.” The club arranged screenings of Elvis’s movies and organized dances around his music. I can’t imagine what they thought of Kissin’ Cousins.