A famous movie star, visiting a Middle East country, becomes involved in the intrigue surrounding an attempted assassination and becomes romantically involved with a beautiful Arabian princess. Elvis sings several songs.
Johnny Tyronne, action movie star and ladies man, is travelling through the Middle East on a goodwill tour to promote his latest movie, "Sands of the Desert". Once he arrives, however, he is kidnapped by a gang of assassins who were so impressed with his on-screen adventures that they want to hire him to carry out an assassination for them. He naturally refuses, and following his daring escape he makes his way across the desert back to civilization, pausing every now and then to sing a song or two.
Source: Internet Movie Database
At least it has the virtue of boasting one of the strangest settings of any Elvis Presley vehicle. Elvis plays an action-movie star on a goodwill tour of the Middle East who's kidnapped in a remote country that has turned its back on modernity. Vilified as an "American unbeliever," he is enlisted by the Lord of the Assassins in a plot to kill a monarch (they've mistaken his filmic kung fu fighting skills for the real thing). And this is an Elvis picture? The soundtrack has a particularly mad selection of faux-"Kismet" numbers relating to the setting, with lyrics such as "I'm gonna go where the desert sun is/I'm gonna go where I know the fun is." Hints that the whole thing is a Rudolph Valentino spoof help the early going, but it gets pretty draggy. Elvis looks liveliest in a Vegas sequence... a bit of foreshadowing.
Source: Amazon.com
Shake That Tambourine
This region 1
DVD is remastered in a new 16x9 digital transfer, in a format preserving the
scope aspect ratio of the original theatrical exhibition, enhanced for
widescreen TVs. The DVD also includes an Elvis Presley trailer gallery.
The stroryline:
in this 1965 movie Elvis plays Johnny Tyronne who is a swashbuckling
action-adventure movie star and ladies' man on a goodwill tour of the Middle
East to promote his latest film. He is kidnapped by a clandestine group of
assassins that want him to kill a desert king. Sand and songs swirl throughout
this tale as Johnny escapes and heads back to civilization but not without
teaming up with former Miss America, Mary Ann Mobley. The film was directed by
former movie hoofer Gene Nelson (OKLAHOMA!) and features such song hits as
Kismet and Harem Holiday.
Source: Amazon.com
| Studio: Warner Home
Video Theatrical Release Date: November 24, 1965 DVD Release Date (USA): August 3, 2004 DVD Release Date (Europe): August 20, 2004 WIDESCREEN VERSION presented in a "letterbox" widescreen format preserving the "scope" aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition.
|
Available at Warner Videos.