Elvis Presley walked into a Hollywood recording studio on March 30, 1972, to rehearse with his band. This time a film crew was there too, cameras rolling.
He’d spent most of the 1960s making movies. Beach movies and race car movies, plus musicals where he played a singing pilot or a singing boxer. More than 30 of them, and not one had ever won him a single award.
This film was going to be different, though he didn’t know it yet.
The idea came from two filmmakers, Pierre Adidge and Robert Abel. They’d just made a well-known tour film about the British rocker Joe Cocker, and MGM wanted them to follow Elvis on the road.
Abel wasn’t sure at first. The story goes that he only came around after seeing Elvis perform in Las Vegas, and Elvis reportedly promised them he’d “act naturally.”
That’s exactly what the cameras got.
In April 1972, Elvis played 15 cities in about two weeks. The crew filmed full shows in Hampton Roads and Richmond, Virginia, then in Greensboro, North Carolina, and San Antonio, Texas. They also slipped backstage in Jacksonville, Florida, and filmed him away from the stage.
Elvis On Tour Theatrical Trailer
There was a young editor helping out on the project. His name was Martin Scorsese, years before he became one of the most famous directors in the world. He put together the film’s montage sequences, using split screens so you could watch Elvis and his band at the same time.
And the film didn’t just show the concerts.
It showed Elvis jamming on gospel songs with his backup singers at rehearsal, just for fun. It mixed in old clips of him on The Ed Sullivan Show back in 1956, the year he blew up. It even had Elvis talking about his own career in a long interview.
Some of what he said about his old movies wasn’t kind. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, didn’t love it. Parker reportedly asked MGM to cut Elvis’s negative comments about his acting, but a few of them stayed in, right next to a reel of all his on-screen kisses.
The tour also gave fans their first live taste of a brand new song, “Burning Love.” It went on to become a top 10 hit.
The very first show the crew filmed was at the Coliseum in Hampton Roads on April 9. Elvis loved gospel more than almost anything, and here he is live at that same Coliseum with “How Great Thou Art.”
Elvis Presley – How Great Thou Art (Live at Hampton Roads Coliseum)
Elvis on Tour opened in November 1972.
A couple of months later, on January 28, 1973, the Golden Globes named it Best Documentary. By some accounts, it shared the prize that year with another film called Walls of Fire.
After all those years in Hollywood, the one Elvis movie to win an award was the one where he got to play himself.
It was also his last feature film. He kept touring for five more years, right up until his death in August 1977.
The movie closes on that backstage footage from Jacksonville, and on a line every fan knows by heart. “Elvis has left the building.”