84 of 86 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not great, but @ this price, may be worth getting, February 25, 2000
This review is from: Elvis-Death of a Legend [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I bought this video in November of 1999 and eagerly avaited its arrival--someone had finally done a detailed (two videos) documentary on the circumstances surrounding the events of August 16-18, 1977 @ Graceland--or so I thought.
This video (2 videos, actually) purports to be a detailed study of the events of the early morning hours of 16 August 1977 (the last day of Elvis' life) to 18 August (the day of Elvis' funeral and burial)at Graceland. Simply put, the video never really delivers. Content aside for a moment, the presentation of this video is rather amateurish--it's not like the guy is using a camcorder to shoot the interviews, but it's definatley not pro quality video equipment, either. But that's not this video's main defect. The main defect is that it bills itself as a detailed documentary on Elvis' death but spends most of its time simply reviewing his life and career--we get a lot of B & W footage from early on in the King's career and a lot (and I mean A LOT) of clips from his films. Why? I LOVE Elvis and--like many other loyal fans--don't like to think about how he died at such a young age, but his death is part of his story and its only natural that fans would want to know as much about Elvis' last 24 hours as possible. In this respect, this video just doesn't cut it.
The one redeeming quality is that there is a very good interview with Larry Geller, Elvis' hairdresser and spiritual guru. Larry was in Memphis on 8/16/77 and saw Elvis just hours before his death and retells the story of the last day of Elvis' life--as he remembers it. This--in all fairness--is not only interesting but downright riveting.
Bottom line: Not by an means a great treatment of this topic, but the Geller interview, along with the good price, might make it a nice addition to the video library of the serious Elvisologist.
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