Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, is returning to cinemas our screens after fans demanded the release of never-before-seen footage found buried in Kansas salt mines.
Elvis fans have been treated by Hollywood in the past but a new film is sure to leave them in a frenzy. Including the Holy Grail of Presley’s concert footage, discovered entombed under Kansas City, this footage has remained a hidden gem for half a century, a secret buried beneath the local salt mine.
Baz Luhrmann, an Australian super fan of The Memphis Flash and a film director, unearthed the treasure full of untouched audio and footage from the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Fans will now be able to witness the new material on the big screen as EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert opens in IMAX cinemas across the UK on Friday, February 20, before going on general release on Feb 27.
All possible thanks to the discovery of 69 boxes of film, which Luhrmann stumbled upon while making his BAFTA winning Elvis bio-pic starring Austin Butler four years ago. In an exclusive interview, Moulin Rouge visionary Luhrmann tells us: “This film was a complete accident. While I was making the bio-pic, I heard from someone who said to me there were mythical lost reels I might be able to use in the movie. Elvis fans got wind of it, and it was like, “release the footage” — like the Elvis files!”.
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“I had the money to go and look for them. So, I sent a guy into the salt mines in Kansas where they keep all of the MGM footage. He kicks the door in and there are 69 boxes of film which have never been seen before of Elvis at the height of his career,” recalls the director. He described: “Then we found another 40 minute tape of just Elvis talking in an unguarded way about his life. That was the lightbulb moment and we thought ‘why don’t we just let him tell his own life story?”.
The Daily Mirror reported: “This is not really a documentary or a concert film. Elvis comes to you in a dream state and sings and tells his story to you. You meet the man, not the myth. As soon as I knew we had this unheard tape of Elvis, I thought ‘let’s just have no talking heads. There’s only one person telling the story, Elvis,” said Luhrmann
Armed with the tapes and 16 unheard recordings, Luhrmann contacted Elvis’s Graceland estate, which added unseen 8mm film footage of The King performing in Hawaii to his treasure chest.
Establishing an office at Graceland, Memphis, for 18 months, Baz, 63, met employees who shared stories of the star. He says: “There’s no AI in this film and there’s no visual effects, except the effect it has on audiences”. Luhrmann worked with Lord of the Rings creator Peter Jackson’s sound and picture restoration facilities in New Zealand to bring 59 hours of archival film footage to life.
Many of the audio tracks did not sync to the footage, so the team used lip reading to match tracks to specific footage. Warner Brothers provided over 2,300 rolls of Elvis archival material to help. Luhrmann says: “Many people helped with this movie. People were in car parks in the middle of the night, trading bootleg stuff”.
The film captures Elvis in his bejewelled jumpsuit era, from 1969 to 1976, during his legendary residency at the then International Hotel in Las Vegas. Luhrmann says: “I think in this movie, what you’re getting at is that for all of that love he gets across the footlights, there’s a kind of sadness and a loneliness. He was very, very famous, very, very young. And then when he gets famous, right at the moment, it’s all great, he loses his mother”. Explaining how love can be hard to trust when you’re that famous, he continued: “That shot of him going into darkness before heading onto the stage, is such a beguiling shot and it’s really sort of haunting”.
As well as showing fame’s downside, the film showcases Elvis’ monster hits including Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock and Heartbreak Hotel. Luhrmann says: “Yes, the black leather suit he wore for his 1968 comeback special was cool. I guess the white jump-suit, because it’s associated with his extremely fast decline at such a young age, is regarded as uncool. But what has been forgotten is that his absolute pinnacle is those very early Vegas shows. The energy onstage was on another level. For a person who’s so uncomfortable offstage, he’s literally a live wire”.
He went on: “If you look at Mick Jagger and Freddie Mercury wearing it, the white jumpsuit becomes this huge rock n roll iconic thing, right?”. Proud of his achievement, the super fan hopes the film gives Elvis the world tour he missed out on, being shackled to Vegas by his controlling manager Col Tom Parker. “He wanted to come to Australia, actually. He wanted to go to Japan. He dreamed of it,” claimed Luhrmann.
The director’s next project is a bio-pic of 15th Century French heroine Joan of Arc, titled Jehanne d’Arc, which he says holds similarities between her and Elvis. He explained: “As soon as I finish the tour of Elvis, I’m back to Joan of Arc and that will be my next journey. I like to be involved in those iconic characters from the pas. You wish their power and their guidance and their light was around today — people who had an effect on the world”.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert opens in IMAX cinemas for a week-long residency across the UK from Friday, February 20 – 27, for general release.
EPiC teaser
Elvis reveals how he felt crushed when he failed to impress at a childhood talent show in Memphis. On a newly unearthed audio tape, he says: “When I first realised I could sing I was about two”.
Elvis says: “I was about eight and my aunt entered me into a talent show, I had no music and I had glasses and came fifth. It destroyed my ego completely. I would sing in church with my mother and father, but I would never sing in public. I was very shy about it”.
Growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi, overnight fame hit hard when his debut single That’s All Right (Mama) was released on Sun Records in 1954. He says: “It happened very fast to all of us, my mother and my father. Everything happened overnight so we had to adjust to a lot of things very quickly”.
Elvis jokes that getting ants in his pants living in the countryside helped him develop the famous jiggle, which got him noticed by a worldwide TV audience on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. He shared: “When I was a little kid I was fooling around driving a truck but anyway I got a bunch of ants in my pants and Ed Sullivan saw me and said “Ah, son of a bitch. Put him on TV and shoot him from the waist up””.
Dismissing allegations he was a bad influence, he says: “I don’t see how I contributed to juvenile delinquency, I am just someone who likes singing and dancing. There was a rumour I shot my mother…that is the one that takes the cake, man!”.
Recalling his time in the US Army and being drafted to West Germany in 1958, he says: “When I was drafted it [fame] was all gone. It was like a dream. Sobering Army life? I was in tanks for a long time and they rock ‘n’ roll quite a bit”.
He felt his attempts to crack Hollywood failed. He said: “The image of me was wrong and I could not say anything about it. It was not anybody’s fault except my own.” Elvis restored his career with a 1968 comeback special, but he never conquered his stage fright. He ended, saying: “I go through it every show, I never get completely comfortable with it”.
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