In the summer of 1970, MGM sent a film crew to follow Elvis Presley as he rehearsed for a run of shows in Las Vegas. The idea was to capture the King of Rock and Roll at the height of his powers — serious, focused, magnificent. What they actually filmed was a 35-year-old man messing about with his mates for weeks on end. The documentary is called Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, and the rehearsal footage in it is the funniest hour of Elvis Presley that exists.
The setup was serious enough. Rehearsals ran through July and August 1970, first at MGM Studios in Culver City, then at RCA in Hollywood, then in Las Vegas itself. He had an enormous band, backing groups and a full orchestra. And the stakes were real — he was returning to the International Hotel for his third season there.
Elvis Presley, Funny Moments (1970)
None of that stopped him from behaving like a schoolboy.
One reviewer cataloged what happens in a single rehearsal clip: he puts his glasses on upside down. He bursts out laughing mid-lyric. He leaps onto a chair, perfectly on the beat, entirely for his own amusement, and knows exactly how funny it is. There are false starts because he cannot get through the song without cracking up. Elsewhere in the footage, he rips his trousers and falls off a chair. At one point he gives one of his friends the finger.
His drummer, Ronnie Tutt, described what it was like to be in that room, and his summary is perfect. “You forget some of the silliness that’s in it. Like he’s just sitting there and the mike starts going over and he’s looking at it.” Then the important bit: “He wouldn’t allow the seriousness of a paying crowd to keep him from getting tickled or getting crazy about something. He didn’t care in that way.”
Elvis Presley Rehearsal That’s The Way It Is Ýou Don’t Have To Say You Love Me.
Here is what makes the footage more than just a laugh, though. He was in complete control the entire time.
Watch closely, and you can see him setting arrangements, telling the backing singers exactly where to come in, catching wrong notes, fixing tempos. He is functioning as a conductor. His bass player Jerry Scheff explained the whole dynamic in two sentences: “We rehearsed probably 200 songs with him. When we played with him, it wasn’t like a rehearsal, it was more like we were just having fun; it was more like jamming.” And then: “But Elvis was always in charge. There was nobody else in charge but him.”
Guitarist James Burton described the effect it had on the musicians. “We had great eye contact on stage and he’d watch me a lot and I never took my eyes off him, because you never knew what was going to happen next. So you had to pretty much keep your eye on him at all times.”
That is the real point of all the silliness. It was a management technique. Rehearsals for a Vegas season are long, repetitive, and exhausting, and Elvis kept the room loose by refusing to let it get heavy. Nobody was frightened of him. Everybody was watching him.
And there is one more reason the footage matters now. People tend to remember Elvis through the sadness of his final years. This is not that man. This is 1970 — lean, funny, energetic, at the absolute peak of his powers, laughing so hard he cannot finish the song, surrounded by people who clearly loved being in the room with him.
He was the King. He was also, on the evidence, an enormous idiot with his friends. The two things were never in conflict.