*This is one of those..."hint movies." They have the perpetual hint of trash about them, but they're consistently circling the trash drain, never quite dipping too deep down below the waters. Eventually, there is a moment of release--in many of these films, there are sometimes several such moments--but the whole affair feels too solid, too well-disguised, for the distinct traces be properly identifiable. My first true Christsploitation movie on the site (Noah didn't count) is The Identical, a movie about the story of Elvis with a Christian spin--and man, does it make some weird decisions.
Based loosely on the possibilities of the fact that Elvis Presley had a miscarried twin brother, we follow the Hemsleys, a Depression-era couple whose child turns out to be twins. They can take care of one child, but not the other, and so when William Hemsley goes to a tent sermon led by Reverend Wade, he hears the words "It is better to give than to receive" and takes them perhaps a bit too literally. You see, Mrs. Wade has miscarried multiple times and it seems unlikely that the Wades will ever have a child. This is going where you think it's going--yes, William wants to give one of the babies to the Reverend and his wife. His own wife resists as first but fortunately they resolve it offscreen, and little Dexter Hemsley becomes Ryan Wade. The Hemsleys hold a funeral for their child (...why?) and we cut away to instead follow Ryan Wade as he grows up. His father wants him to be a preacher, but Ryan is much more interested in music, particularly the nascent genre of rock and roll. His father continually punishes him for sneaking out to rock clubs (or "honky-tonks" as he calls them) and eventually makes him join the Army...hey, just like that Elvis guy! (Except Elvis was drafted, not pushed in by his dad.) Ryan eventually hears about rock legend Drexel "The Dream" Hemsley, who maintains the same level of fame in this universe as Elvis; after marrying his girlfriend Janey, Ryan decides to enter a Drexel Impersonator contest which the King himself is judging. He's so good that he gets a deal as "the Identical," a Drexel cover artist who gets paid as much as Drexel himself (!!!). Eventually however Drexel dies in a plane crash (just like Elvis?) and Ryan retires, aiming to make peace with himself and his father, as well as his birth family when he learns of them. He decides to return to music in the end, so that his brother's dream can live on.
This movie is actually pretty sweet, even though I don't share its religious values, and even though it twists history to do what it yearns to do. The acting is good, the sentiment seems real, the filmmakers obviously adore and respect Elvis, the direction is pretty solid, it's pretty-looking, and it actually lands quite a few of its jokes. Of course, I may speak from a position of relief that this movie is never truly uncomfortable (except for one possible moment explored below); still, Stockholm Syndrome is better than what I can usually hope for in a movie like this, so I'll take it.
That having been said. It's still a movie about an Elvis impersonator who is as successful as Elvis himself. It's still about a movie put in that situation by a couple faking their child's death to cover up a simple adoption situation. (Did they seriously think adoption wasn't a thing during the Depression?) It's still a movie where a husband tells his wife to her face, "Maybe we can just give up the one?" It's still a movie where the first dialogue that isn't narration is some incredibly jarring yelling. But that's not the full depth of it. For one thing...Elvis exists in this universe. I have seen this commented on by everyone who's ever reviewed it, but it bears repeating time and time again: Elvis Presley is mentioned to exist and have the same career as he did in real life in this universe. Meaning this is a movie about a hugely successful Elvis impersonator who is himself impersonating an Elvis impersonator. A single line that includes Elvis in this universe undoes the whole dynamic, but that's really only the biggest problem.
Janey is originally seeing someone else when she re-enters Ryan's life, working as a nurse. However, he keeps creeping on her, calling her from work over and over, and sending her flowers. Worse, he uses the fact that she accidentally revealed the identity of one of her patients--Drexel Hemsley's dying mother--to creep on, well, a stranger's mother, because when Ryan decides to creep into the room of the hospital where Janey works to see Mrs. Hemsley, he doesn't know they're related. He explains to her, "I'm a big fan of your son's music and I just wanted to offer you a little prayer," but if someone came into my hospital room when I was sleeping and that was their explanation I would say something along the lines of, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Admittedly, the conclusion to this creepiness results in the pretty-funny scene where Ryan and his boss from the auto shop show up to serenade Janey, getting arrested in the process--he convinces her to get a single cup of coffee with him, and we Gilligan Cut from his arrest to their getting married. Again, this movie does do some things right.
It's interesting because while the movie insinuates that rock and roll was invented by two white guys playing black guys' instruments (actually, from a metaphorical statement, that's...well I mean the white guys don't steal the instruments in this case...), it takes a strong stand against traditional conservative authority. Reverend Wade's treatment of Ryan is shown to be, if not abusive, then sincerely troubling, for both of them, especially when it results in the elder man's heart attack. The movie seems to say that that old way of yelling at your kids, making them follow in your footsteps whether they want to or not, telling them to "be a man," shipping them off to the Army for misbehaving...that hurts both of them, and only in letting it go do the old priest and his son find peace. When the cop shows up to bust the "honky-tonk" that Ryan sings at (with the term itself being a racially-charged phrase), he says to the mostly-black crowd the place is "dark and stinky" and that it's full of "reefers and devil music." Ryan tells him there's nothing wrong with the people there and gets a punch to the gut. Racism and intolerance towards certain types of music are condemned just as surely as that '50s household lifestyle is. Where I was perhaps a bit uncomfortable was where the movie had a scene set during the Six-Day War which was likely intended as an analogy for a modern-day pro-Israel message. It feels out of place with the rest of the movie, but, chemical weapons aside, the scene is framed to be more of a pro-Judaism message, which I support (though I know that associating modern Israel with Judaism can be uncomfortable for some). For a Southern white church in the '60s to include a Menorah in their church and to declare foreign Jewish folk to be God's Chosen People seems pretty progressive to me. This is sort of a setup to when Ryan finds out later that Mrs. Hemsley was Jewish, making him Jewish as well--a fact which seems to delight him. For once, I feel I can presume innocence, and feel comfortable believing that this movie is just pro-Jewish, which is much-needed in movies in the 2010s.
I have so much difficulty digging into the strangeness of this movie, and why they might have done it the way they did. I'm glad that its quirks exist, though, and I can be distracted by such gems as the confirmation that Drexel Hemsley did in fact star in a series of increasingly-shitty beach movies before his untimely demise, just like his real-life counterpart (err...impersonatee?). I can notice little bits like the fact that Ryan's adopted mom never ages even while Pastor Wade shrivels into an old mummy. I can look forward to the bizarre Tarzan yodel Reverend Wade lets out when he finds out Ryan knows the truth about his parentage. Yes, this is a "bad movie." And, it's part of a genre which I normally otherwise find to be really upsetting. But it largely avoids offense and thus carries enough of that elusive hint, that seductive trashy odor, to make it a classic for me.
* Call me crazy, but I looked over my copy a few different times and for the life of me, I swear this movie has no title card. My DVD actually stopped working after my last look-through, and appears to have died permanently! That's why I've used the poster instead, which, incidentally, is from IMDB.
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