Stay Away, Joe

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Stay Away, Joe

film poster by Robert McGinnis
Directed by Peter Tewksbury
Robert Goodstein (Ass't)
Produced by Douglas Laurence
Written by Dan Cushman (novel)
Michael A. Hoey &
Burt Kennedy
Starring Elvis Presley
Joan Blondell
Burgess Meredith
Music by Jack Marshall
Cinematography Fred J. Koenekamp
Editing by George W. Brooks
Distributed by MGM
Release date(s) March 8, 1968 (1968-03-08)
Running time 102 min.
Language English

Stay Away, Joe is a 1968 comedy-drama western film with musical interludes set in modern times and starring Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith and Joan Blondell. The film was based on the 1953 novel by Dan Cushman, a satirical farce. The movie reached #65 on the Variety weekly national box office chart in 1968.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Elvis Presley stars as Native American rodeo rider Joe Lightcloud, a Navajo whose family still lives on the reservation. He returns to the reservation in a white Cadillac convertible with which he proceeds to drive cattle.

Joe persuades his Congressman, played by Douglas Henderson to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so he and his father, played by Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor Burgess Meredith, can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, then the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend, Bronc Hoverty, played by veteran actor and director L.Q. Jones, who had also appeared in Flaming Star (1960), accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy plumbing and other home improvements for his stepmother, Annie Lightcloud, portrayed by Katy Jurado.

Joe is able to borrow a bull, Dominick, but the bull is lackadaisical and shows no interest in the heifers. Former leading lady Joan Blondell appears as shot gun-toting tavern owner Glenda Callahan, whose daughter, Mamie Callahan, played by Quentin Dean, can't seem to stay away from the girl-chasing Joe. Joe also trades in his horse at a used car dealership from Dick Wilson for a red convertible automobile from which he sells the parts off to obtain cash from a salvage yard. After almost all of the usable car parts are sold, he rides around in a beat-up motorcycle.

In order to raise money, Joe organizes a contest in which riders have to stay on Dominick, the unresponsive bull he procured from his friend as a replacement. In addition, Joe himself has to ride Dominick and stay on in order to win the prize money. Joe wins the contest and receives the prize money. In a fight at his father's house, Joe and his friends are involved in a large fight that destroys the house they have been building.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Soundtrack

For the first time since Wild in the Country, neither an LP album nor and extended play single was planned for a Presley film soundtrack. Three songs were written for the film by the stalwart team of Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman, who had already contributed close to 50 songs for various Elvis movies in the decade.[1]

Although released before Speedway, this film and its soundtrack were made after, the first of Presley's last five films in the 1960s where musical numbers were kept to a minimum.[2] The recording session took place at RCA Studio B in in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 1, 1967, Presley making his record producer Felton Jarvis promise never to release the song written for Elvis to sing to a bull in the movie, "Dominick." However, the song is actually sung to two women in the movie, and the bull is nowhere to be seen in the scene, making a rather strange scene.[3] The other two songs, "Stay Away, Joe" and "All I Needed Was the Rain," wouldn't even be featured on a promotional single for the film premiere, but instead respectively appeared on the budget albums Let's Be Friends in 1970 and Elvis Sings Flaming Star in 1969.

Two additional songs related to the film were recorded at sessions on January 10 and 11, 1968, at the same studio. "Goin' Home" by Joy Byers would not be used, surfacing on the soundtrack to the next movie, while a different song entitled "Stay Away" rewritten from the tune of "Greensleeves" by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett would appear as the b-side to the #28 hit single "U.S. Male."[4] Released as catalogue item 47-9465b on February 28, 1968, the b-side "Stay Away" would peak at #68 on the Billboard Hot 100 independently of "U.S. Male."[5] The producer in charge of the recordings for MGM was Jeff Alexander.[6]

[edit] Personnel

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[edit] Film music track listing

  1. "Stay Away" (Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett) - heard over opening credits
  2. "Stay Away, Joe" (Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman)
  3. "All I Needed Was the Rain" (Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman)
  4. "Dominick" (Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman)

|}

[edit] References

 Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (July 2010)
  1. ^ Jorgensen, Ernst. Elvis Presley A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998; p. 239.
  2. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 229, 239.
  3. ^ Ibid.
  4. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 241-242.
  5. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 418.
  6. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 239.

[edit] External links

[edit] DVD Reviews

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