The 1979 movie nobody was brave enough to make except John Carpenter: “A great deal of courage”
John Carpenter is, without a doubt, best known for helming the 1978 slasher Halloween, a landmark entry to the horror genre that spawned countless copycats in its wake and set new standards in the industry for indie filmmaking.
Made on a budget of just $300,000, the movie was a hit, having since spawned various sequels and spin-offs… One of its most captivating elements was its score, a synth-laden symphony of fear that Carpenter himself made, and having also co-written the film, it soon became clear that Carpenter was a jack of many trades.
He’d made two films before – the sci-fi comedy Dark Star and the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13 – but it was Halloween that shot him to acclaim. Horror was never the same again. So, you’d think that he’d focus his attention towards another horror movie in the wake of its success, but instead, Carpenter decided to do something completely different.
He wanted the change, so instead he accepted the opportunity to make a movie specifically for TV that would bring the story of the King of Rock and Roll to life. Elvis premiered in 1979, becoming an instant success, with former child star Kurt Russell taking on a role unlike anything he’d done before. It was a turning point for both of them.
Elvis earned Russell several award nominations, including a Golden Globe, proving that he was capable of more than Disney roles, which he’d appeared in continuously throughout his career until this point. But there was actually a lot of pressure surrounding the project, because there’d never been a biopic made about the musical legend before, who’d only passed away in 1977.
“I was hired to do Elvis with about two and a half or three weeks to go before shooting. Nobody in town would make it. Everybody was scared of it,” Carpenter told Ain’t It Cool News. “It could have been a total disaster. I mean an absolute horrible disaster, and the reason is because Elvis was so iconographic and recognisable. We’d seen him in his movies. He’d only died the year before. It was going to take a great deal of courage to go and make something like this.”
He’s not wrong. Presley had such a hold over pop culture, with his gyrating hips and white jumpsuit; he really did something that, at the time, was quite simply extraordinary. The mainstream hadn’t seen anything like it before. He was a major heartthrob, a superstar in every sense of the word, and it was going to take a lot to accurately tell his story without it feeling like a poor imitation.
“Also, Dick Clark was involved in this. He’d been involved in, obviously, some great things regarding rock and roll. I had a great love for Elvis. He was very influential for me as a little kid. Kurt felt the same way,” Carpenter added.
Russell had actually made his film debut in 1963 as a kid in It Happened at the World’s Fair, his job being to simply kick Presley’s character in the leg. So, it all came full circle for Russell in 1979, who gave an incredible performance as Elvis, reassuring Carpenter that he’d made the right decision in taking on such a risky project.
