Presley;Elvis Collection

There are several collections out now of Elvis Presley movies, and this 4-DVD set is one of the best of them. All of these films are digitally remastered, presented in widescreen, and look great on my high-definition TV. "Jailhouse Rock" (1957) and "Viva Las Vegas" (1964) are among Elvis's best films, and while "Girl Happy" (1965) is not one of his very best films, it's a lot of fun and quite humorous. "Kissin' Cousins" (1964) is a lesser quality Sam Katzman ("King of the Quickies") production, but a lot of fans see it as a fun one too. "Jailhouse Rock" was even selected in 2004 for the National Film Registry as a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant film," and it's the only film here that's in black-and-white. So the other 3 are in color, duh! (Some of my information is from the very helpful book Elvis Presley in the Movies with DVD by Timothy Knight.)

What makes this set an especially good deal is that the versions of "Jailhouse Rock" and "Viva Las Vegas" in this set are the Deluxe Editions that have a lot of interesting extras on them, especially the feature-length commentary on each one by Steve Pond, author of the book Elvis in Hollywood (Newly discovered photographs of the making of "Love Me Tender" from the Michael Ochs Archives).. I also particularly enjoyed the newly made 20-minute featurette "Elvis in Vegas" that's included on (where else?) the DVD "Viva Las Vegas," and in it various people (Peter Guralnick, Joe Esposito, George Klein, etc.) discuss the movie as well as Elvis's concerts in Vegas. The featurette "Elvis in Vegas" would even be a nice introduction to Elvis's great concert film Elvis: That's the Way It Is (Two-Disc Special Edition). The only extras on "Girl Happy" and "Kissin' Cousins" are trailers for each movie and the restored songs ("Startin' Tonight" in "Girl Happy" and "Smokey Mountain Boy" in "Kissin' Cousins") that I assume had been deleted from the original theatrical release of the films. An additional nice extra provided is the photo booklets with "Viva Las Vegas" and "Jailhouse Rock," while "Girl Happy" and "Kissin' Cousins" include B & W photos and small movie posters. Each movie has subtitles available in English and French, while "Jailhouse Rock" and "Viva Las Vegas" also have the sound options of Dolby Digital 5.1 or original mono (sorry, I don't have a surround sound system so I can't assess how well that works on these).

Each movie here is in the plastic case that it is sold in if bought separately, with all 4 cases then put in a nice-looking and understated cardboard box. I have not seen and heard everything on these DVDs yet, so I might have more to say when I do. But I wanted to go ahead and let you know that "Viva Las Vegas" and "Jailhouse Rock" are in their Deluxe Editions in ELVIS COLLECTION.

4 movies for a great price. Presley at his best. All films remastered and look great. My favs which are Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas look fantastic and sound better than ever.

My 9 year old daughter thinks that Elvis is great. I was looking for DVD's of some of his movies and found this DVD on Amazon. I am very pleased with the DVD and was pleased with the shipping time.