Above video is the dance number in HD in the original Cinemascope format.
Jailhouse Rock was written by Nedrick Young who won an Academy Award for The Defiant Ones, a movie Elvis could have starred in if his manager hadn’t stopped the deal in favor of another musical.
It was directed by Richard Thorpe of Ivanhoe and Prisoner of Zenda fame. For the Jailhouse Rock song and dance number, Elvis tried the Fred Astaire type moves, but it didn’t work. So, the choreographer had Elvis perform Hound Dog and Don’t Be Cruel to see how Elvis moved. He incorporated those moves into the dance number.
Before the scene was filmed, Elvis befriended Russ Tamblyn (West Side Story), who showed him how to put more power and action into his dancing.
During the scene, when Elvis was sliding down the pole, a cap of his tooth lodged in his lung and had to be removed by a surgeon who parted his vocal cords. This echoed the scene in the movie where Elvis loses his voice due to a punch in his throat.
According to Bob Reylea, the assistant director, Elvis and his leading lady fell deeply in love during production, though she was married.
She was Judy Tyler, Princess Summer-fall Winter-Spring on the Howdy Doody Show. Reylea, says that Judy and Elvis had talked seriously about getting married in the near future.
However, two weeks after filming, Judy and her husband were killed in a car crash. Elvis cried and said to a reporter, “All of us boys really loved that girl. She meant a lot to all of us. I don’t believe I can stand to see the movie we made together now….”
No one knows if he ever saw the movie, but it’s a fact he did not attend the premier.
The movie is now considered a classic with the Jailhouse Rock dance number being 'the father of modern-day music videos'.
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2018 - Forbidden Power wins Best Picture out of 1,000 entries at the Hollywood BITB International Film Festival.
2019 - Best Science Fiction Feature Film - Oklahoma BB Film Festival.
2019 - Best Thriller - London Flicks Film Festival.
2019 - Best Original Screenplay - Florence Film Awards Italy.
2019 - Best Feature Film - New York Cinematography Awards.
After a one-night affair, a young man wakes up alone with sexually transmitted powers.
He searches for the woman to find out the source of her power and why he was chosen.
I recall seeing, probably on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, that number live on TV. I don't recall seeing the movie.
Ron