Frankie and Johnny

Plot synopsis:
Johnny and girlfriend Frankie are performers on a Mississippi River riverboat, which also has a casino. Johnny is a compulsive gambler who is down on his luck and in debt.
Johnny and his friend Cully, a musician and composer, visit a gypsy camp to get his fortune told. A lady reads tea leaves and tells Johnny that he will soon meet a red-haired woman who will bring him luck.
Back on the boat, Johnny and Cully promptly encounter Nellie Bly, their boss Clint Braden's on-again, off-again girlfriend. Nellie has just caught Braden seducing another singer, Mitzi. Since she has red hair, Nellie is persuaded by Johnny to touch his chips for luck. After he wins, Johnny is convinced that the gypsy must be correct.
Frankie finds out and becomes jealous, as does Johnny's boss. In a bit of musical theatre, Frankie shoots Johnny for dancing with Nellie Bly while singing Cully's latest song. A Broadway recruiter sees the riverboat show and buys the rights to this new song, suggesting that Frankie and Johnny should work together with him in New York City.
Landing in New Orleans, the musical cast and riverboat crew attend a masked ball. Frankie, Nellie and Mitzi all rent the same Madame Pompadour costume.
Johnny is eager for the luck of redhead Nellie to win more money, contrary to Frankie's expressed wishes. Being masked and in costume, Frankie and Nellie scheme to switch places to test Johnny's lucky-redhead theory. Johnny wins $10,000 at roulette, but when he kisses the woman he believes to be Nellie, he discovers the switch. Frankie is furious and throws all the winnings out of a window, into the street.
Blackie, a dim-witted stooge who works for the boss, hears Braden drunkenly complain about how he has lost Nellie. Thinking he can be of help, Blackie switches the blank cartridge in Frankie's stage gun for a real bullet.
The boss tries to prevent the impending disaster, but arrives on stage too late and Johnny is shot for real. Frankie forgives his gambling as the love of her life appears to be dying but he stands up, apparently unhurt. Johnny was saved because the bullet struck a lucky medallion he was wearing that Frankie had given him.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Good fun for Elvis fans, Donna Douglas fans.
Romping, colorful Presley vehicle with plenty of songs and good comedy from Harry Morgan and Donna Douglas.
Johnny (Presley) is a riverboat gambler who becomes convinced that a redhead is his good luck charm -- problem is, Frankie (Douglas) is a blonde!
This is an oddity in Elvis’ filmography: a quaint but pleasing musical comedy based on the popular song which had already inspired a similarly-titled film from 1936 starring Helen Morgan – apart from being featured in the Mae West vehicle SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933) and, again, as recently as Robert Altman’s A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (2006).The star isn’t entirely comfortable amid the 1890s riverboat setting, what with a few of his musical performances (and especially his hairdo) coming off as inextricably modern.
The cast presents three notable female roles: Donna Douglas (as Frankie), Nancy Kovack as Elvis’ red-headed lucky charm and the flame of his jealous boss, and Sue Ane Langdon as a ditzy “blonde” – who, along with Presley’s long-suffering sidekick Harry Morgan, turns out to be the most likable character as well as the purveyor of the film’s comic relief.Elvis’ best ‘new’ number is “Hard Luck”; apart from the title tune, he also gets to sing the standard “When The Saints Go Marching In” (while dressed in full military regalia)!
This one is actually the closest thing that Elvis ever did to a typical Hollywood musical like "Music Man." There's an interesting plot and some good energy that carries through the first half of the movie, but it limps along badly in the second half.
At the end, there is a gem called "Please, Don't Stop Loving Me." It comes at about 80 minutes of the film's 87 minute run and I'm not sure that anybody except Elvis fans will last that long.Apparently Donna Douglas and Elvis had deep philosophical conversations on Paramahansa Yogananda and the Christian religion during the breaks while shooting this movie.
One suspects that if Douglas and Kovack had changed roles, the film would have worked much better.This doesn't fit into the category of Elvis' good movies, but it also doesn't fit into the category of his bad movies.
Elvis plays Johnny, a riverboat entertainer that has a big gambling problem.
Donna Douglas, better known as Elly Mae Clampett, is Johnny's girl, Frankie.
Some of the songs leave a lot to be desired, but there was a pretty good supporting cast in this movie, Donna Douglas (The Beverly Hillbillies) and Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H*) to name a few.
This was a typical Elvis movie, but the fact that it was on a riverboat set in the late 1800's early 1900's makes it interesting.
There were a few good songs in this movie, but they were few and far between.
Frankie and Johnny (1966) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Johnny (Elvis) is a riverboat singer who is also one of the worst gamblers in the world, which gets him into major debt and grief to his partner Frankie (Donna Douglas).
With no where else to turn, Johnny starts going to a gypsy for advice and she tells him that great luck will come in a beautiful redhead (Nancy Kovack) but this starts trouble with his boss as well as Frankie.
What stands this film apart from the others through are the incredibly well done songs, which also feature some great musical numbers.
The highlight is the wonderfully played out title song as well as several other tunes including "What Every Woman Lives For", "Down By the Riverside", "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Hard Luck".
Elvis doesn't give what I'd call a good performance but he fits his role well as the dumb but entertaining singer.
The biggest credit must go to the supporting cast with Douglas stealing the show and Harry Morgan adding great comedy..
The long shots of the riverboat appear borrowed from "Show Boat," or perhaps "Huckleberry Finn."It's a shame they rarely gave Presley a good vehicle to showcase his talents.
At first this Elvis Presley feature felt like a breath of fresh air, as it's a costume piece set aboard an old-time riverboat where Elvis plays an irresponsible and compulsive gambler named Johnny.
Donna Douglas (best known as Elly May from "The Beverly Hillbillies") is his cutesy girlfriend and singing partner Frankie, and they perform as a duet on the boat (Douglas is unconvincingly dubbed).
Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H fame plays Johnny's older mentor (he gets to sing too - uggghhh) who visits a gypsy fortune teller with Elvis to learn that a redhead (Nancy Kovack) will soon arrive to change his luck.
Frankie and Johnny wasn't half bad as Elvis pictures go- which means it was half- watchable as a movie and not just a typical kitchy vehicle to ogle the King.
The musical performances we're good and the sets and costumes interesting-the high point in the film is the last performance of Frankie and Johnny--Elvis actually comes off pretty suave at times as a river boat gambler and his character played well off a nubile, young Donna Douglas.
Harry Morgan does a good job as Elvis' older, more wary sidekick and the rest of the cast work well and don't detract/subtract from the main action which is of course- Elvis.
"Frankie and Johnny" is one in the long line of musicals which Elvis Presley churned out in the sixties.
Johnny and his girlfriend Frankie are performers on a Mississippi riverboat; Johnny is also a compulsive gambler, and as the boat has a casino on board he has plenty of opportunities to gamble.
The film deals with the complications caused in their relationship by Johnny's gambling habit and Frankie's jealousy of his friendship with an attractive redhead named Nellie Bly. Johnny's interest in Nellie arises from the fact that a gypsy fortune-teller has informed him that a red-haired woman will bring him luck, but the jealous Frankie suspects that their relationship goes much deeper.One of the problems of casting a rock star in a Victorian period drama is that rock didn't actually exist in the Victorian era.
The makers of this film are not really all that concerned with period accuracy- some of the music we hear sounds suspiciously like jazz, which didn't really exist in the 1880s, and even the song "Frankie and Johnny" itself was not published in its modern form until the 1920s.
Somebody, however, obviously realised that rock-and-roll would be anachronistic, so the star gets to sing a series of bland, totally forgettable easy-listening numbers.Elvis was always fairly laid-back as an actor, but in this film he doesn't seem to make much effort as a singer either, being content just to stroll his way through the film.
The rest of the cast are no better; in his film career Elvis played opposite some pretty obscure leading ladies, but Donna Douglas is one of the least memorable of the bunch.
Most Elvis Presley films these days are unlikely to appeal to anyone other than his many devoted admirers, but I suspect that even they will find themselves feeling a bit short-changed by this one.
Frankie & Johnny is in my opinion, not one of the better Elvis movies.
But the star power was out in full force: Donna Doglas, Harry Morgan, Sue Ane Langdon.Elvis is a river boat gambler/hired singing help looking for a luck red head to help him find his fortune.
The saga of Frankie And Johnny gets a lighter telling in this Elvis Presley film.
Elvis plays an entertainer on a Mississippi riverboat circa the turn of the last century with a real gambling problem.
His partner in the act is Donna Douglas late of the Beverly Hillbillies who would only marry him if he gives up his ways.
Want to bet on the chances that that would happen?Donna and the King work for Anthony Eisley whose number one girl Nancy Kovack, the infamous Nellie Bly has returned and an old gypsy said that a redhead would bring Elvis fabulous good luck.
But that causes problems with both Eisley and Douglas.A few new numbers were written for the film, but Frankie And Johnny has mostly traditional ballads of the era such as Down By The Riverside and When The Saints Go Marching In. All done in a New Orleans Dixieland style, most agreeable with Presley.Some others in the cast are Harry Morgan as Elvis's accompanist, Audrey Christie as Morgan's wife, Robert Strauss as Eisley's dimwitted bouncer, and Sue Ane Langdon who spends the entire film absolutely plastered.
Elvis Presley was a hugely influential performer with one of the most distinctive singing voices of anybody.
He embarked on a film career consisting of 33 films from 1956 to 1969, films that did well at the box-office but mostly panned critically (especially his later films) and while he was a highly charismatic performer he was never considered a great actor.This said, a good deal of his earlier efforts (late 50s-early 60s) were actually pretty good and more, his best being 'King Creole', 'Flaming Star', 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Viva Las Vegas' and 'Loving You'.
Those films looked good, had great soundtracks, great supporting casts and showed that Elvis could be a very capable actor when his material allowed it, even when the dialogue and stories were in a few of them were not strong suits ('King Creole' was a notable exception though).
Am of the opinion that Elvis' film career was an uneven film, while there were good films and performances there were also bad films where he looked bored, where the films had not so good soundtracks and looked cheap, a notable example being his previous film 'Harum Scarum' (widely considered one of his worst for good reason).'Frankie & Johnny' is towards the lesser half of his filmography while not quite among his very worst.
It is better than 'Harum Scarum' (then again a lot of things are), but still contains a lot of things that make some of Elvis' mid-60s onwards films not so good.Starting with its good things, most of the songs fare well, especially the title song, "Hard Luck", "Shout it Out" (the most energetically performed of the songs) and "Please Don't Stop Loving Me".
Audrey Christie is also a lot of fun, and Donna Douglas is a competent leading lady.The riverboat setting has moments where it's attractive enough, and some of the first half is brightly and breezily paced.However, Elvis spends the whole time looking as if he didn't want to be there despite singing beautifully as always, while the chemistry between him and Douglas lacks spark or passion.
Although the soundtrack is mostly good, several of Elvis' 60s films had at least one song that was disposable.
In 'Frankie & Johnny's' case, there are two that in no way pass muster as good songs and don't feel necessary, those being "Chesay" and "Petunia the Gardener's Daughter".Dubbing is also an issue, Elvis' lip synchronisation is sloppy, and it was far too obvious that it wasn't Douglas and Morgan singing their own music, the difference between speaking and singing is blatant and distracting and Douglas doesn't look at ease.
The way the numbers are staged varies, "Hard Luck", "Please Don't Stop Loving Me" and "Shout It Out" are fine but most of the rest are fairly static and seriously repeating footage of the title number in the reprise of the finale was not clever and just screamed of trying and failing to hide running out of time and budget.Apart from the attractive riverboat setting, 'Frankie & Johnny' is another Elvis film that looks like it was made on the cheap and in haste, with a lot of garish and lurid colours, cheap-looking and anachronistic costumes and a flat made for TV-like look to the photography.
It is in the second half too where the story becomes increasingly far-fetched and less easy to follow and the dialogue increasingly groan-worthy (even for those expecting that in the first place).Overall, semi-watchable and okay at best time filler but Elvis was worthy of so much more than this.
The acting and dialogue are stilted, and the songs featured in this flick are far below Elvis' standards.When I first saw the movie in its theatrical run, I got up and walked out of the theater after only about 15 minutes of viewing.When I recently saw the movie again, I changed TV channels after enduring 30 minutes of the movie.
Don't waste your time with this one.It's too bad that Elvis never got the chance to perform as a serious actor..
"Frankie and Johnny" is undoubtedly one of, if not THE, worst of Elvis Presley's films.
Mind you, none of Elvis' films were Academy Award material, but this film looked as if it were a hokey made-for-TV movie rather than a theatrical release.
Donna Douglas' singing voice is obviously dubbed as is Harry Morgan's.
Even the director of the film, Frederick de Cordova, had his roots in TV working with George Burns and Johnny Carson - hardly credential enough to be directing a movie musical at a time when the movie musical was all but dead anyway.I walked away from the movie feeling as if I had wasted my time..
Listless, abysmal Elvis Presley outing, loosely based on a 19th century French folk song, concerns a riverboat entertainer (and luckless gambling addict) in New Orleans told by a gypsy soothsayer that his luck will change once he dumps his blonde steady for a redhead.
Filmed on the cheap, with Presley faking his way through.
Two good EP songs, "Please Don't Stop Loving Me" and "Shout It Out", though the latter number is stolen from the star by a woozy ho-daddy guitarist in the bottom left of the screen.
Donna Douglas, Nancy Kovack, and Sue Ane Langdon are a fun femme trio, but Harry Morgan is a colorless sidekick and Elvis just looks beat.
Even though they have a lousy reputation I've generally been a fan of Elvis Presley films.
Unfortunately, there's precious little entertainment in 'Frankie And Johnny' which is especially frustrating as a lot of the elements are there for a satisfying film such as a workable plot, good supporting cast and colourful sets.But this feels boring and lifeless from the word go.
Elvis deserves some of the blame as - apart from 'The Trouble With Girls' - I can't recall him giving such a dull performance.But the real culprit is Frederick De Cordova who directs the film so lifelessly and lazily that the film never has a chance.Take for example the finale where it's been set up by a supporting character that in their staged musical number Frankie will shoot Johnnie with a real bullet instead of a blank.
All this and the culprit is forgotten 15 seconds later for the upbeat closing musical number!Even amongst his mid to late 1960s work, you can do much better if you're searching for an Elvis film to watch..
Very loosely inspired by the classic title song, it showcases Presley as a riverboat performer and gambling addict.
He has a relationship with his singing partner Douglas, but that is strained to the limit when he encounters Kovack, a redhead who he believes is essential in fulfilling his gypsy fortune to win big money at the roulette wheel.
Unfortunately, Kovack is the one-time love of Presley's boss Eisley and he isn't quite ready to give her up yet, despite his own affair with kooky chorine Langdon.
More direct comedy is provided by Morgan and Christie as Presley and Douglas' married friends.
The shenanigans (including mistaken identity, flirtation, drunkenness and the roller coaster of the roulette wheel) all come to a head during a performance of the title song during which Presley's life is endangered.
The pace of the film borders on stagnant, despite the setting, and the many songs Presley performs are chiefly forgettable and unimaginatively staged.
She is lovely to look at most of the time, but is obviously uncomfortable in the musical sequences in which her voice is dubbed and her movements are lacking in assurance.
Kovack is attractive, but, like Douglas, far from seeming at home in the musical interludes.
Though the film has many colorful costumes and settings, it comes off as pretty cheap-looking.
Which is arguably the case with most Elvis Presley movies, where he plays himself, sings a few songs, and the movie depends on the rest of the cast.
This is a costumer set in the indefinite past, where everyone is first aboard a riverboat and then in New Orleans.Elvis plays a performer in a riverboat musical entertainment show, with a blond girlfriend who acts with him.
It's a period song and dance musical set aboard a show boat seems instantly dated, and Elvis seems way ahead of it in time period.
It's all about the issues between singing gambler Elvis, his long suffering girlfriend Donna Douglas and the threats of a gypsy prediction.
Even the traditional musical films of that time had modern elements; the ones here had been in use in the mid to late 1930's.
The only difference is that when Elvis sings (and shows off his lacquered hair), you're transferred out of the era of the setting of the story and right back into a dress- up party in 1966.
With Audrey Christie as Morgan's nagging wife (making them a copycat version of "Show Boat's" Captain Andy and Party), Nancy Kovack as Nellie Bly (the threatening redhead) and Sue Ann Langdon as ditsy Mitzi, this takes the legend of Frankie and Johnny to cheeky level, with Kovack attractive, but seemingly a bit long in the tooth to be the femme fatale.
As Frankie, Donna Douglas grows some claws every time Kovack is around, almost making you forget that she's the ingenue on a popular sitcom.
The title song is a little nasal for my taste, but a few takes on traditional American music made a huge difference.