There’s a cheerful honesty to Elvis Presley’s Chad Gates in Blue Hawaii that’s irresistible. Back home after a two-year stint in the army, Chad serenades his pining girlfriend Maile (Joan Blackman) with “Almost Always True” (“I was always, baby, I was always / Well almost always true to you”), and she beams at him as they barrel down a Hawaiian highway. He tells his parents that he’d rather be a serenading tour guide than join his father in the pineapple-farming business, and though his mother (a shrill Angela Lansbury) nearly faints, his father (Roland Winters) smiles and shrugs. There’s very little narrative here—aside from the family squabble, the only other drama comes from a skeevy subplot involving a field trip of high-school girls who go gaga for Chad—and any problems that arise are easily solved with a ukulele and a song. We get “Blue Hawaii” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (the latter oddly sung to Maile and her grandmother at the same time), as well as “Rock-a-Hula Baby.” My favorite number is “Slicin’ Sand,” in which Elvis swivels and shivers on the beach, turning what should be an impediment to movement into a giddy prop.
