Memphis Meadowlark

Wild in the Country (20th Century-Fox) casts Elvis Presley, the well-to-do Memphis meadowlark, as a farm boy who fears he bears the mark of Cain because he clonked his brother with a milking stool. The parole board takes the broad view, however, and soon Elvis is out haylofting with two chicks, brown-haired Millie Perkins, a long way from The Diary of Anne Frank, and Tuesday Weld, a 17-year-old who is going to look a great deal like Saturday night before she is 20. Afternoons he spends with Hope Lange, a widowed psychologist.

Once that's accomplished, Elvis turns out to be an author possessed by--as Clifford Odets, who wrote the film, puts it--"beauty and power and excitement." Hope and Elvis motor up to the state university to bag a scholarship from the friendly old white-haired English professor. On the way back it rains, and, perhaps a bit too cautiously heedful of the fact that the car has bald tires, they take lodging (separate rooms, of course) at a motel. But love blooms through the plasterboard, and some lowlife spreads the news. Scandal breaks loose. Elvis sings several mournful ballads. It all turns out well. At fadeout, Elvis gets all three girls and the scholarship too.

The absurd side of this nonsense is that Elvis is much too good for the show. He is, in fact, the best actor in the film. The deep-pile sideburns have been clipped slightly, and something--perhaps German umlauts learned in the Army--has strengthened the rosebud mouth. He behaves with considerable authority, and shows his dramatic ability by containing his laughter when Hope Lange says (to the lad who was buying Cadillacs before he was 21): "Don't try to tell me you're just a barefoot country boy."

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