Lucky Jackson, a musically-talented race car driver—yes, it’s that kind of movie—is racing in the Las Vegas Grand Prix. He befriends his rival, Italian racer Count Elmo Mancini, and the two spend a night zipping around Vegas strip clubs looking for a blonde-haired woman named Rusty, who they met earlier that day. The next day, Lucky meets Rusty at the hotel pool and she rebuffs his advances. He gets knocked into the pool and loses the money he saved for a new engine. Rusty has to work at the hotel to pay off his bill and re-save for the engine, using every opportunity to get in the way of Rusty and Elmo’s flirtations. He also enters in the hotel’s employee talent show, giving him the chance to sing the film’s titular song. In the end, Lucky gets the money, gets the girl, and wins the race—because, of course he does—it’s just that kind of movie.
“Viva Las Vegas” is an Elvis Presley musical, regarded by many as one of his best films. The film has the music, color, and polish of early-Disneyland with the sex appeal, innuendo, and action of a James Bond flick. It’s fun, it’s sexy, it’s stupid, and it’s dessert. To quote one review: “[the film] is about as pleasant and unimportant as a banana split.” I agree. Elvis is charming, carefree, and unchanging. In fact, the only character to undergo any sort of “growth” is Ann-Margret’s Rusty, who has to learn to accept and share Lucky with his “other woman”—the sport of racing. The musical numbers were “meh” to me (most used a stage-performance framing device to avoid having to come up with a fun, in-world dance sequence). The titular “Viva Las Vegas” was my favorite song and gets played 3 times to really hammer it home. The film’s climactic race scene is a master-class in how NOT to shoot a race. It had no sense of geography or tension (I could never tell where Rusty was in the standings) and had no consequences (Elmo gets obliterated and is then just—fine). The film ends as quickly as it started, feeling more like a pretty music video than a meaningful story.
The film hits this really unique spot where, I didn’t actually think it was a good movie, but if I caught it on TV, I’d probably stop and finish it again.