Jailhouse Rock (film)

• Release Date: 1957
• Director(s): Richard Thorpe
• Writer(s): Guy Trosper
• Principal Actors and Roles: Elvis Presley (Vince Everett); Elvis Presley (Vince Everett); Jennifer Holden (Sherry Wilson); Mickey Shaughnessy (Hunk Houghton); Judy Tyler (Peggy Van Alden)

Jailhouse Rock is a 1957 film starring Elvis Presley as Vince Everett, an angry young man of superb musical talent who lands in prison after killing another man in a barroom brawl. Presley appeared in thirty-one films and Jailhouse Rock is among his best known. It features songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, including the title track, which Presley performs in a famous set piece that he also choreographed.

Plot

After landing in prison, Everett shares a cell with Hunk Houghton, a country western singer who enjoyed some modest success. Houghton listens to Everett sing, then, encouraged by his musical talent, teaches him to play guitar. The prison inmates broadcast a musical show on television. Everett sings during the broadcast and his charismatic performance yields him a considerable amount of fan mail. Houghton is jealous of Everett and hides the letters from him. He also persuades Everett to sign a contract to make them equal partners. During a riot, Everett strikes a guard. The warden orders that he be whipped as punishment. Houghton, who is genuinely fond of Everett, tries to intercede on his behalf by bribing several of the guards. Houghton’s effort is unsuccessful.

Everett serves twenty months of his sentence and is released. Before his release, Houghton refers him to a nightclub owner who is also a friend of his. At the nightclub, Everett is dismayed when the owner attempts to hire him as a busboy and not a singer. Everett joins the band anyway but then becomes irate when a patron insists on laughing during his performance. A musical promoter, Peggy Van Alden, hears him sing. Impressed by his ability, she suggests that he record a song. She brings the song to a record company, but then she and Everett are both stunned to learn that a musician she promotes named Mickey Alba has recorded and released the song instead.

Everett is attracted to Van Alden, although he treats her rudely. Nevertheless, the two decide to form their own record label together. Their first release, Everett’s rendition of "Treat Me Nice," becomes a major hit.

Houghton is released from prison and asks Everett if he can appear in a musical performance that Everett is scheduled to give on television. In a rehearsal prior to the broadcast, Everett performs "Jailhouse Rock." To his dismay, the number that Houghton was scheduled is cut from the show because his musical style is no longer relevant. Everett also informs Houghton that a contract Houghton asked him to sign when they were in prison is invalid. However, Everett still values Houghton and does not reject him outright. Everett offers Houghton a job as a musical assistant, which Houghton readily accepts.

Everett’s fame continues to grow, but Van Alden, who loves him, finds his behavior off-putting and arrogant. When Everett signs a contract with a Hollywood studio, the executives try to arrange a romance for him with Sherry Wilson, an actress whom they also have under contract. Wilson becomes infatuated with Everett after they kiss during one of their scenes together.

Like Van Alden, Houghton also finds Everett’s transformation from a down-on-his luck inmate to a celebrity upsetting. When Houghton confronts Everett, his anger boils over, and he punches Everett in the throat. While hospitalized, Everett forgives his loyal friend. Everett also realizes that he loves Van Alden, whose has loved him from the time she first encountered him in the nightclub as a struggling ex-convict. Concerned that his voice has not recovered, he sings the song "Young and Beautiful" to her. It was the song that he performed the night when they first met, and his beautiful rendition conveys how he has now acknowledged his true feelings for her.

Significance

Jailhouse Rock received mixed reviews from critics, but it is still considered significant in film history. It is ranked 495 on Empire magazine’s list of the 500 best films ever made. The National Film Registry also deemed it worthy of preservation, an honor reserved for a highly select group of films that are "culturally, aesthetically or historically significant."

The obvious explanation is the important place that the film occupies in Presley’s luminous career. He was born in 1935 and rose to fame in the 1950s, first as a practitioner of a musical style known as rockabilly, then as a performer of rock and roll, which had enormous cultural influence with Presley as one of its groundbreaking figures.

Many of Presley’s films are frankly lacking in quality. Critics question his acting ability—though never, of course, his musical ability—and his films have often been the subject of ridicule. Still, in Jailhouse Rock he found a film project that was unusually suited to his talents. The set piece in which Presley performs the title track has had wide influence. Memorably choreographed by Presley himself, it is believed to have inspired the music video genre that began in the 1970s and remains popular today.

In addition to Presley, two other major contributors to Jailhouse Rock are the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Together, they wrote over 70 hit songs. Their songs that Presley performed in Jailhouse Rock and the film itself are an essential part of Presley’s legacy.

Bibliography

Doherty, Thomas. Teenagers and Teenpics: Juvenilization of American Movies. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2002.

Guralnick, Peter. Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. New York: Back Bay, 2000.

———. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. New York: Back Bay, 1995.

———. Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2015.

Leiber, Jerry, and Mike Stoller. Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography. New York: Simon, 2010.

Williamson, Joel. Elvis Presley: A Southern Life. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014.