Fun in Acapulco: Difference between revisions

Fun in Acapulco
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Richard Thorpe
Written by	Allan Weiss
Produced by	Hal B. Wallis
Starring	Elvis Presley Ursula Andress Paul Lukas Elsa Cárdenas
Cinematography	Daniel L. Fapp
Edited by	Stanley E. Johnson
Music by	Joseph J. Lilley
Production company	Hal Wallis Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	November 27, 1963 (1963-11-27) (USA)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$3,100,000 (US/ Canada)

Fun in Acapulco is a 1963 American musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley and Ursula Andress.

The film featured the Top 10 Billboard hit "Bossa Nova Baby" and reached #1 on the national weekly box office charts a week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The film would be Presley's last release before the arrival of Beatlemania. It was the top-grossing movie musical of 1963.

Plot

Elvis Presley with Ursula Andress and Elsa Cárdenas in a promotional picture of the film.

Mike Windgren works on a boat in Acapulco, Mexico. When Janie Harkins, the bratty daughter of the boat owner, gets him fired, Mike must find new work. A Mexican boy named Raoul helps him get a job as a lifeguard and singer at a local hotel. Clashes abound when Mike runs into a rival lifeguard, who is the champion diver of Mexico. He is angry at Mike for taking some of his hours, and for stealing his woman.

Mike is recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a fear of heights, following an tragic high-wire accident during his career as a circus performer. However, after Mike sees the lifeguard perform a number of dangerous dives, including flips and head-first dives into a section of the pool surrounded by a ring of fire, he decides to get even with him and eventually sets himself up to perform a death-defying dive off the 136-foot cliffs of La Quebrada in front of hundreds of people. Mike dives off the cliff, and successfully lands in the water, earning the lifeguard's respect.

As the crowd and the lifeguard applaud, Mike performs one more song and leaves with Margarita and Raoul.

Cast

• Elvis Presley as Mike Windgren
• Ursula Andress as Margarita Dauphin
• Elsa Cárdenas as Dolores Gomez
• Paul Lukas as Maximilian Dauphin
• Larry Domasin as Raoul Almeido
• Alejandro Rey as Moreno
• Robert Garricart as Jose Garcia
• Teri Hope as Janie Harkins
• Genaro Gomez as Bullfighter (uncredited)
• Red West as Poolside Guest (uncredited)
• Teri Garr was an uncredited extra.

Controversy

Exterior filming in Acapulco took place in January 1963. A stunt double was used for Presley, whose own shots were later completed in March at the Paramount studios in Los Angeles. Presley was unable to travel to Mexico as he had been declared "persona non grata" by local authorities following two violent riots at the trendy 'Las Americas' cinema in Mexico City, during the openings of his previous films King Creole and G.I. Blues.

In 1957, the Excelsior newspaper published an article by gossip columnist Frederico de Leon that falsely stated Presley had been interviewed while visiting Tijuana. "(Presley) said he would not care to go to Mexico," the article read, "as he found it a distasteful country, adding that he would in fact prefer to kiss three African Americans than a single Mexican woman." This led to a split in attitudes towards Presley among Mexican youth which became physically violent on several occasions. The King Creole riots saw 100 people jailed. By the time of Fun in Acapulco's release, Presley's records had been banned from airplay and his records publicly burnt in the El Zocalo town square.

Decades later, it came to light that the false Presley quotes were the work of Ernesto Peralta Uruchurtu, a powerful politician and the regent of Mexico City. Uruchurtu allegedly sent a blank cheque to Presley's Los Angeles offices in early 1957 in return for his appearance at the 15th birthday bash of the daughter of a powerful media mogul. The cheque was not accepted, despite the fact that the mogul had already began to boast publicly that Presley would appear. The story was then planted both as a form of revenge, and as a way of explaining why he did not in fact appear. These incidents were documented by Parménides García Saldaña in his book chapter, "Rey Criollo", and in Eric Zoloy's book Elvis Refried: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture.

Soundtrack

Main article: Fun in Acapulco (album)

See also

• List of American films of 1963

References

2. See writer's biography in Wikipedia's Spanish language page.

External links

• Fun in Acapulco at IMDb
• Fun in Acapulco at the TCM Movie Database
• Template:AllRovi movie
• Review by Kevin Laforest at Apollo Movie Guide
• Review of the collection "Lights! Camera! Elvis! Collection (King Creole, Blue Hawaii, G.I. Blues, Fun in Acapulco, Roustabout, Girls! Girls! Girls!, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, Easy Come, Easy Go) by Paul Mavis at DVD Talk, August 6, 2007
• Review by Mark Zimmer at digitallyOBSESSED!, January 22, 2003