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Talk about cultural curios. That's exactly how
Tickle Me was regarded when it was released in 1965, the same year as the Beatles'
Help! There was a musical revolution going on, but you wouldn't have known it from this would-be comedy, in which the King plays a rodeo champion forced to take a job on a combination dude ranch/fat farm. Naturally, all of the women tumble at his feet; even when he's pitching hay, he's liable to burst into hip-swiveling song. What little plot there is deals with his romance with the ranch's exercise instructor (Jocelyn Lane), who happens to hold the key to a fortune in gold hidden in a nearby ghost town. Nary a recognizable Elvis hit is to be heard in the score, and as for his acting, well, Elvis looks as though he happened to be wandering past the set and was pressed into service at the last minute.
--Marshall Fine
From the Back Cover
New man in Zuni Wells. Handsome. Knows horses. Looking for part-time work until rodeo season opens. But when the so-called ranch job Lonnie Beale snaps up turns out to be a stint at a dude ranch/spa for actresses and models and when the fella playing Lonnie is none other than Elvis Presley, it's a cinch we're all in for full-time fun!
Tickle Me tickles viewers with a saddlebag of nine tunes, including "I'm Yours" and "(Such an) Easy Question." There's considerable tickling of the funnybone too, since writers Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds are veterans of the Three Stooges comedies. Frequent sitcom player Jack Mullaney is the foil of most of the gags and pratfalls. But Elvis also enjoys his share of the laughs as he meets girl (Jocelyn Lane), loses girl, and gets girl back plus a fortune in lost gold. With songs, laughs, and The King, Tickle Me is good as gold in so many ways.