The facts behind "Elvis Meets Nixon" are so ludicrous they seem like fiction.
This made-for-cable movie (Sunday, 10 p.m., Showtime) is built around one of the strangest photo-ops in history. Elvis Presley and President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office on Dec. 21, 1970 - a meeting Elvis instigated because he wanted to be named a "Federal agent at-large" to fight the drug problem.Really. This actually happened.
As a matter of fact, the first line in the telefilm - spoken by narrator Dick Cavett, is, "The story you are about to see - for the most part - is true. And that's what's so scary about it."
It's a wonderful tone to set for the movie. But, unfortunately, more than two-thirds of "Elvis Meets Nixon" goes by before that tone is re-established.
The film opens shortly before Christmas 1970. Elvis (Rick Peters) is at Graceland in Memphis, shooting bullets into TV sets and generally acting like a numbskull.
When his wife and father scold him for spending too much money, he does something he never did before and will never do again - he takes off on his own and spends time without his entourage.
The first two-thirds of the movie deals mostly with Elvis as a duck out of water. He doesn't know how to buy a plane ticket. He doesn't know how to use a credit card.
The guy keeps insisting that he's traveling incognito, but he's wearing a purple jump suit (complete with a cape), carrying a gold cane and dripping jewelry.
We see brief glimpses of Nixon (Bob Gunton in a performance that borders on parody) fretting and whining about how the anti-war protesters hate him.
What could be really funny stuff falls flat, however. Writer/producer Alan Rosen and director Allan Arkush have put together a movie that's entirely too smug for its own good.
Instead of just letting all of this weirdness play out, "Elvis Meets Nixon" throws its material at viewers and expects them to laugh uproariously. There are lame embellishments like Elvis in a cab commenting negatively on Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 and wondering what kind of idiots would ever have anything to do with people like that.
It should come as no surprise that "Elvis Meets Nixon" is not exactly factual. This is an attempt at comedy, not documentary.
The movie has Elvis flying from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles before returning to meet Nixon. While on the West Coast, Elvis - still attired in that purple jump suit - goes down to Sunset Boulevard, where no one recognizes him.
Rosen admits the entire sequence was "fictionalized" but is quick to add that something like that "actually happened."
"That did happen to Elvis in 1968," he said. "So we just borrowed that and put it in the movie in 1970."
The problems with the script aren't accuracy, however. Some of it is wryly funny, but it's not nearly as funny as this self-satisfied production seems to think.
And the script is intent on reaching for parallels between Elvis and Nixon that are, at best, a stretch.
"Elvis is born on January eighth; Nixon is born on January ninth," said Rosen.
(Big deal. What he neglected to mention is that they were born 22 years and one day apart.)
"They seem to rise up together in the '50s," Rosen insisted. "They both got supplanted by what happened in the '60s. . . . And in '68, within a month of each other, they made miraculous comebacks. Nixon won the presidency in November of '68 and Elvis made that big comeback special on TV December of '68. They were back up at the top. . . . And then, they met in 1970.
"And their lives turned to (expletive) shortly thereafter," Arkush interjected.
(And, speaking of expletives, "Elvis Meets Nixon" is full of them - including frequent use of the word that can get a movie an R rating if it's used too often.)
The movie would have been better served by less reaching for parallels and more deadpan comedy. Because that's when "Elvis Meets Nixon" really hits its stride - when it pulls back and lets the humor come from the events.
It's often laugh-out-loud funny in the final 20 minutes as various people - both government officials and Elvis' friends - are just stunned to see events unfold. Think about it, Elvis and Nixon?!?
In the movie, as in fact, Presley writes the president a letter offering his services in the drug war. And Nixon sees it as a chance to reach out to the youths of America.
"This is just what I've been looking for," he tells aide Bob Hal-de-man. "Elvis Presley, a rock 'n' roll hero to millions, wants to help with our anti-drug crusade. This will go a lot farther with the kids than Art Linkletter."
And the movie meeting itself is a hoot.
"If what you're about to see didn't happen exactly this way, it should have," Cavett intones.
Elvis and Nixon sing "My Wild Irish Rose" and "My Way" together in the the Oval Office. And when Elvis asks to sit in the president's chair, Nixon responds, "No, that wouldn't be a good idea. If Haldeman came in and saw that, he'd want to sit there, too."
If the entire movie were as funny as the end, it would be a comic classic. But it's not.
Too bad.
HOW WEIRD: Showtime is hyping "Elvis Meets Nixon" as a movie that "commemorates the 20th anniversary of Elvis' death."
Huh?
On the one hand, you've got to wonder how this teleflick could possibly "commemorate" anything. And on the other hand, isn't it just a bit sick and twisted that we're "commemorating" the death of anyone, let alone Elvis.
Not that Showtime is alone. Everyone from TNT to the Family Channel to KBYU is jumping on the Elvis bandwagon in the next few days.
Very odd.