Customer Reviews

Elvis: Collapse of Kingdom [VHS]

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I have purchased the entire series of "All The King's Men" tapes. I cannot explain how one can feel just watching the "Memphis Mafia" sitting around together just talking and sharing the stories of their close life with Elvis. I laughed and I cried with these men. One gets a very good understanding of why these men stayed with Elvis, though the good and the bad. These men are very sincere and I believe, despite what others may have said, dedicated to and loved Elvis very much, and still do as you will see. My very best to them. END

The demise of certain celebrities can be more compelling than their lives, to those drawn to the lure of the goddess Success. Elvis is probably the definitive example of such appeal. Howard Hughes is another. This is probably why I watched this episode of the 6 part series, but have no yearning to see the earlier ones. This is not a criticism of the film-makers since, for what it is, this documentary is fascinating viewing. It features no footage of Elvis, a few stills but otherwise members of his "Memphis Mafia", sitting around sharing anecdotes of the last 7 years of Elvis' life. We aren't told the specifics of the 5 men's jobs, but the manner in which these good ole boys speak creates the impression of informed (and private) confidences. The King's drug dependency is chronicled, evolving from his initial use of diet pills in the army, to sleeping pills, wake-up pills, and pain pills. All this medication was prescribed, but prescribed by a doctor who later lost his licence to practice because of charges of over-medicating his patients. The drug-taking changed Presley's behaviour but the boys also claim it was Colonel Tom Parker's monomaniacal control over his client that eventually reduced him to a comatose lump of water retention. The tale of Barbra Streisand's offer for Elvis to co-star in her remake of A Star Is Born is raised, and the boys believe that the Colonel vetoed it because he was afraid of the influence Streisand would have on Elvis, since she is thought of as an independent entertainer, and a threat to Parker's sole management. Some might argue that having Jon Peters, her then lover, acting as manager for Streisand altered the trajectory of her own career. (They later disagreed and separated over Barbra wanting to make Yentl). Whether or not Elvis was capable of playing the role in Streisand's film, he was certainly willing to try, as well as keen to tour internationally, and we are told that Parker killed the latter ambition since he was an illegal Dutch alien and afraid of being prosecuted. However Elvis was also to blame for his frustrations, since a sense of loyalty kept him tied to the Colonel, and fear made him unable to be without him. The boys want to convince us that they would have preferred Elvis to end his association with Parker, but one has to wonder who was actually paying them, if Elvis was so dependent. We hear of Elvis acting as an agent for the FBI, his collection of guns, his little-known philanthropy, and his physical and mental deterioration. In the face of accusations of opportunism, the boys deny that they were yes men to Elvis' indulgences. Given the choice of either abandoning him to his drug abuse, or trying to moderate it, they say they chose to stay to help, though when Elvis eventually tired of their interference and fired them, their hurt could best be alleviated by writing a tell-all book "What Happened?" The boys claim they wrote it out of love, and that Elvis needed something this dramatic as a cataylst for change. The book was published, in spite of Elvis' efforts to stop it. This makes the story they tell of another assistant who stole (presumably) pornographic polaroids from Elvis' bedroom ironic, since the boys seem to take the higher moral stance against this person, yet then don't hesitate to betray their former employer. This hypocrisy is repeated in their condemnation of the TV concert footage taken a few weeks before Elvis' death, but their argument that people didn't have to see Elvis in such a state, is silly when he was performing to live audiences. I gather that part 6 of this series covers the details of Elvis' death even though it is titled "The Legend Lives On", since it is not here.