Elvis Presley was a hugely influential performer with one of the most distinctive singing voices of anybody. He embarked on a film career consisting of 33 films from 1956 to 1969, films that did well at the box-office but mostly panned critically (especially his later films) and while he was a highly charismatic performer he was never considered a great actor.It is easy to be put off by the rather dreadful and inappropriate title, but giving it a chance 'The Trouble With Girls' while a long way from a great film was much better than its title suggested. Whereas the title indicated another formulaic Elvis set in the 50s-60s with lots of girls and variable thrown in songs it was actually rather a change of pace with a unique 20s setting. 'The Trouble With Girls' is a long way from Elvis' best, but it is equally a long way from being one of his worst as well (it's not even the worst of this particular period of his career).'The Trouble With Girls' has its strengths. The setting is interesting and looks quite handsome, while the photography is a far cry from the garish, cheap look of many of Elvis late 60s outings. Of the songs, the standout is "Clean Up Your Own Back Yard", one of the best songs in an Elvis for a long time. "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" is also lovely.As for Elvis himself, he looks great and while his vocals are underutilised compared to usual he also sounds great. While he has given more enthusiastic performances before he still looks confident and there is not as much a sense that he was not interested like with some of his later films. The supporting cast were a mixed bag, but Dabney Coleman makes for an excellent sleazebag and Vincent Price is suitably distinguished and a lot of fun. Sheree North fares the best of the ladies and Anissa Jones is immensely charming.Quite a lot doesn't work however. John Carradine's only noteworthy bit is the line regarding Romeo and Juliet, otherwise he's wasted, and Marlyn Mason and Nicole Jaffe are similarly given little to work with. Joyce Van Patten is plain obnoxious in alternative to funny. and Edward Andrews' role is too underwritten for him to do much with it. Generally the characters are a mix of bland and annoying, so it's hard to empathise, and they also are saddled with dialogue that felt more at home in a badly out of date sit-com.While Elvis doesn't come off too badly, he is underused and too much like a supporting character. Apart from two songs, while none reach disposable or career-low level, the rest of the songs are not particularly memorable. The weakest element is the story, the slightness may have been more forgivable if the pacing wasn't so lethargic or the storytelling so muddled, as a result of trying to include too much and not knowing what to do with it or who to target it towards. The direction seems at odds with the material, with it being obvious that Peter Tewksbury was more comfortable with cosy and wholesome and not with darker edge and broad.Overall, not as bad as the title suggests but not Elvis' finest hour either. 5/10 Bethany Cox

If you're looking for Elvis Presley on a beach, on an island or in the tropics and looking for girls or fighting them off!, then this film is not for you. "The Trouble with Girls" centers on a circus-like festival that travels from town to town and stops in this little hamlet. Residents include Dabney Coleman and Sheree North, and horror film veterans Vincent Price and John Carradine make cameos, which are probably the best attributes of this film. It's not that the film is that horrible, but it's not that terribly good either. In the beginning much of the perspective is seen from a little girl (who is very cute and adorable) and a little boy. Even though most of Elvis' beach movies are dismissed as generic and formulaic fluff (such as "Clambake,") they can be relaxing and enjoyable, if one likes that sort of movie. But this was all a hodge podge, with not much singing in it and no plot to follow and no one to really like. Elvis doesn't even have that much air time in it. There may be worse Elvis films (I know there are,) but this was a major disappointment in all categories of a relaxing time with Elvis.

I'd never really particularly liked this film mainly because it was nominally an Elvis movie but had Elvis pretty much co-starring in his own film. It's true that he doesn't get much screen time in this, his second-to-last scripted screen performance, but upon this screening I found that I enjoyed it more just as a film. The story is a little draggy, and fairly quirky, and this is a property that'd been shopped around for years before ending up as an Elvis Presley project.Chautauquas were popular traveling shows that, peaking around the turn of the century, brought to small towns lecturers and performers of all kinds. In "The Trouble With Girls" (weird title, more descriptive of some of his earlier '60s movies than this piece), Elvis plays the manager of a traveling Chautauqua troupe. They arrive by train in a small Iowa town and -- well -- trouble ensues. In reality, though, the trouble's mainly with the men. The film was originally titled "Chautauqua" but its name was changed because studio executives felt that nobody'd know what the heck a Chautauqua was. Didn't really matter much, anyway, because by 1969 Elvis' movies were finally not exactly packing them in and the unwieldy title "The Trouble With Girls (And How To Get Into It)" is hardly descriptive or indicative of the film's contents. Those who were still going to see Elvis' movies at the theater probably would've gone to see it if they'd titled it "Elvis Presley Movie #29," anyway.Elvis looks great in this film, with sideburns not only restored to full pre-Army glory (as they had been since late '67) but bigger and fuller than ever before. He does a fine job acting, even though his role is not as demanding as some he'd taken on if only because he was just one of an ensemble cast. It was quite a cast, too, including the likes of Vincent Price (great in a brief couple of bits as "Mister Morality") and John Carradine (only briefly seen, unfortunately -- conventional wisdom has it that this is the last film in which he and Vincent Price appeared together, though IMDB tells me that they co-starred in two more in the '80s). Dabney Coleman, ever-smarmy as a cheating druggist, is excellent as always and it's his character who ends up polarizing and driving the action forward on this rather lethargic property.But it's an Elvis movie, right? (well, sort of) So what about the songs? Well, because of the setting, all of the songs are realistic in presentation -- none of the typical musical's invisible orchestra -- and most of the Elvis tunes are further realistic in terms of their instrumentation. Elvis doesn't sing much in this film (1968's "Speedway," shot in the summer of 1967, was the last song-heavy Elvis film) but most of what he does is excellent stuff. The rousing traditional black gospel song, "Swing Down, Sweet Chariot" (a totally different song to the "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" that most are familiar with) is done to perfection under the Chautauqua's big tent. Elvis had recorded this song back in 1960 and remade it for this film -- it was only the second of three 'religious' songs that Elvis did for the movies (the first was 1967's "Sing, You Children" from "Easy Come, Easy Go," and the third was "Let Us Pray" from 1969's "Change Of Habit"). Elvis also does a few lines of "Violet" during a medley of college fight songs (he also recorded "The Whiffenpoof Song" but, if it was included in the movie, it's missing from my copy) and he unveils a pretty and simple ballad, "Almost" near the movie's end. Along the way he and Marlyn Mason (no, not Marilyn Manson) duet on the Dixielandish "Signs Of The Zodiac," basically a novelty song. Elvis also does a song called "Clean Up Your Own Backyard," a song that pithily targets hypocrisy (small-town or big-city varieties) and that was as relevant to the situation in 1969, or today, as it was to the movie's central plot. The song is excellent and is heard here without the overdubbing that accompanied the single release. "Clean Up Your Own Back Yard" is easily among the very best of Elvis' movie songs and would have fit seamlessly within the body of work that he was laying down in the studio around this time, all of it of excellent quality (his legendary Memphis sessions of 1969 were just three or so months in the future when he made this film).This is not one of the classic Elvis films, even within the subgenre of Elvis' classic ‘60s musical films -- it's a drama-focused period piece in which Elvis is an underutilized part of an ensemble cast. It does, however, have some good scenes and some solid acting, though it wasn't about to give Butch and Sundance a run for their money at the box office. Elvis began production of this film a couple of months after taping the legendary 1968 TV Special and within a year would make headlines around the world as a result of his triumphant return to the concert stage. "The Trouble With Girls" was symptomatic of a Hollywood world that had palled in Elvis' mind and that would soon be totally irrelevant to who he was and who he was perceived to be. It's interesting, and has its moments, but it pales beside the real-life drama of Elvis in his element...performing live on stage. Still, for me, seeing Elvis do "Clean Up Your Own Back Yard" is, alone, reason enough to catch this rather odd film. And if you want to see Elvis in anything but ‘a typical Elvis Presley film,' this might be the movie for you. That is, if you can't find a copy or broadcast of "Flaming Star" or "Follow That Dream."

Strictly for fans of the King this movie is one of the worst I have ever seen. It looked as though it was written and directed by Ed Wood without the props falling over. Elvis' hair changes from one camera angle to another, there is no real plot, all of the characters are predictable. The only saving grace was.....well....there was no saving grace. It's bad.