Blue Hawaii

1961 film
the 1961 film

Blue Hawaii is a 1961 American musical romantic comedy drama film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Elvis Presley. The screenplay by Hal Kanter was nominated by the Writers Guild of America in 1962 in the category of Best Written American Musical. The film opened at number two in box office receipts for that week and, despite mixed reviews from critics, finished as the 10th top grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 in the Variety national box office survey, earning $5 million. The film won a fourth place prize Laurel Award in the category of Top Musical of 1961.

Having been released from the Army, Chadwick "Chad" Gates is eager to return to Hawaii with his surfboard, his native Hawaiian beach friends, and his mixed race girlfriend Maile Duval. His mother, Sarah Lee, wants him to follow in his father's footsteps and take over management at the Great Southern Hawaiian Fruit Company, the family business, but Chad is reluctant and goes to work as a tour guide at his girlfriend's agency. His slightly scatter brained boss is Mr. Chapman. The first clients Chad has are an attractive school teacher, Abigail Prentice, and four teenage female students. One of the students, 17 year old Ellie Corbett, seems self centered and doesn't get along with the other three, but she becomes smitten with Chad. Chad's girlfriend, Maile, becomes jealous of Abigail, who is quite fond of Chad. After Ellie's flirtatious ways with another tourist cause a wild fight to erupt in a restaurant, Mr. Chapman fires Chad. Maile quits her job in protest. Maile and Chad independently continue guiding Abigail and the four youths, taking them to Kaua'i. One night Ellie attempts to seduce Chad in his hotel room, but he refuses her advances; at the same moment, Maile pays a surprise visit to the hotel. Ellie despondently flees in a stolen jeep, intending to drown herself in the ocean. Before she can, Chad pulls her out, attempts to speak to her, but then decides to punish her with a spanking. In the next scene, the girls, including Ellie, are having breakfast. Ellie is now pleasant, friendly and well mannered, and jokes about the spanking. Meanwhile, Abigail has found romance with Jack Kelman, a longtime business partner of Chad's father. With Jack's help, Chad and his father resolve their differences about Chad's future. Chad and Maile form their own tourism business—Gates of Hawaii—and begin arrangements to provide tourist services for his father's large network of fruit salesmen in the U. S. and Canada. The film ends with Chad's and Maile's lavish outdoor wedding.

Blue Hawaii was the first of three Elvis films shot in Hawaii, followed by Girls! Girls! Girls! in 1962 and Paradise, Hawaiian Style in 1965. Producer Hal B. Wallis was keen to put Presley in a film that showed how the army affected a man. Actress Juliet Prowse, who had starred with Presley in GI Blues, was approached to be his love interest again. But after her demands were put forward, Paramount decided to drop her for the role, choosing Joan Blackman instead. At the time, film producer Walter Mirisch had a film titled Hawaii in production, and he was upset that Wallis had chosen such a similar name. He arrived at the recording studio on March 21 to start recording the film's soundtrack. After location filming, the crew returned to the Paramount lot to finish other scenes for the film. Presley relaxed during filming by giving karate demonstrations with his friend and employee, Red West, which resulted in Presley's fingers becoming bruised and swollen. Wallis warned the female stars of the film to avoid parties Presley hosted because they were turning up for shooting looking tired. Variety wrote, "Hal Kanter's breezy screenplay, from a story by Allan Weiss, is the slim, but convenient, foundation around which Wallis and staff have erected a handsome, picture postcard production crammed with typical South Seas musical hulaballoo Under Norman Taurog's broad direction, Presley, in essence, is playing himself—a role sure to delight his ardent fans." Harrison's Reports graded the film "Fair", adding: "As is the custom in a Presley production, the crooner gyrater dominates the running time of the film. That is why, it is more the pity, now that he has so many films under his acting belt that he still continues to deliver such an embarrassingly poor performance." John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "does a lot for the 'paradise of the Pacific,' showing its foamy waves, palm trees, luaus and a couple of plush hotels, but not very much for Elvis' fans (what age bracket does he appeal to now?) One of these days Elvis will play a straight role with substance, and we'll definitely find out whether he can act or not."

Presley's remake of the title song introduced it to an audience too young to remember Bing Crosby's original hit version. The soundtrack album was on the Billboard Pop Albums chart for 79 weeks, where it spent 20 weeks at #1. It has been certified by the RIAA for sales of three million copies in the U. S.

The soundtrack album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1961 in the category of Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from a Motion Picture or Television. The soundtrack featured the hit song "Can't Help Falling in Love" sung by Elvis, which is certified Platinum by the RIAA, for U. S. sales in excess of one million copies. The song peaked at No. 2 on the U. S. Billboard Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart for six weeks, as well as topping the British charts in 1962. As of 4 March 2024, the song was the most streamed Elvis Presley song with total streams on Spotify totalled at 836,193,249 and was on course to be the first Elvis Presley song streamed on one billion occasions. Youtube streams on the Elvis Presley channel totalled in excess of 400 million on the same date.