Viva Pod Vegas #004 – King Creole (1958)

by CageClub Podcast Network · Published March 10, 2020 · Updated March 10, 2020

We’re headed down to New Orleans for King Creole, which many (including Elvis himself) consider to be The King’s best movie of all-time. Are we peaking too early, or are we lucky just to get a movie this good? In this episode, we talk about the most natural use of Elvis songs in a movie so far, the differences between a hoodlum and a hustler, and the connections that King Creole shares with both King Kong and Furious 7. We admire the stacked cast (Walter Matthau! Vic Morrow!), the fine directing (Michael Curtiz!), and great noir vibe. We also note that if Elvis’s characters only realized they loved Dolores Hart sooner, they could inevitably avoid a whole lot of trouble. As Elvis’s longest movie (and his third and final one released in black and white), King Creole marks a pivot point for both Elvis and Viva Pod Vegas.