Easy Come, Easy Go (1967)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1967
Running Time	91:00
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	John Rich
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Elvis Presley Dodie Marshall Pat Priest Pat Harrington Jr. Skip Ward Sandy Kenyon Frank McHugh Ed Griffith Elsa Lanchester
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Joseph J. Lilley

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish German Greek English French Italian Hebrew Croatian Icelandic Hungarian Dutch Icelandic Polish Norwegian Portuguese Romanian Serbian Slovenian Swedish Finnish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    An unfortunate pattern seems to have been apparent as Elvis Presley's film career developed. As time wore on, Elvis became a better actor, but at the same time the quality of his films deteriorated (and they didn't start off too well to begin with). Easy Come, Easy Go is a case in point. In this film Elvis gives a nicely developed portrayal, but the plot is a strange mixture of underwater diving action, 60s hippy culture, and the usual romantic triangle which is a staple of most Presley movies.

    If you have been following the series of Presley reviews I have been writing recently you will know that the plots of these films are not the best. This one outdoes itself. Elvis plays the part of Ted Jackson, a naval diver. Not just any diver, he is an 'Explosive ordinance disposal man"!. After singing the title track over the opening credits (showing how versatile he is), Ted has to dive to disarm a sunken mine. He is harassed by a boatload of bikini babes (!) but still manages to complete the job. While he is diving he comes across part of an old wreck lying at the bottom of the waves.

    As he has come to the end of his service in the navy, Ted hooks up with an old friend and tries to raise money to dive down and investigate the wreck for lost treasure. To obtain information on the wreck, he tracks down the daughter of the lost ship's captain, Jo (played by Dodie Marshall). Jo is a yoga practicing, go-go dancing, art loving 60s child. Following this, much diving, double-crossing and romantic dabbling takes place before Elvis sings the last (and only decent) song in the movie, Measure for Measure at 88:24.

    There are a number of problems with this film:

• The supporting cast is very weak. I haven't heard of Dodie Marshall before, and on this performance I can understand why. Even Elsa Lanchester, who is reasonably reliable (if you can't place the name, she was the departing nanny in Mary Poppins), puts in a weak performance as a whacked-out yoga teacher. And as for Frank McHugh as Captain Jack, well I wanted to strangle him after 5 minutes.
• The plot is a disaster. Whoever decided to try and mix underwater adventure with 1960s psychedelia must have been smoking one strange weed. The end result is like some sort of weird cross between a Jacques Cousteau documentary and a downmarket Austin Powers piece of 'shaggedelia' (sorry about that word).
• The music hardly helps. The Elvis songs are fairly weak (apart from the closing song) and they are few and far between. The score by Joseph J. Lilley is unremarkable 1960s twanging guitars. It is even bouncing and jolly during a life and death struggle Elvis has with the villain!

    I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture. Just to make sure that I was not being overly harsh, I asked for my wife's opinion. Maria is the Elvis fan of the household, and she tells me she was bored to tears while we were viewing the film. This one is for Elvis completists only.

Video

     Unlike the plot, the transfer on this disc is rather good.

    The film is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 which is acceptably close to the cinema release ratio of 1.85:1. It is also 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture is quite sharp, and there is little low level noise. Shadow detail is particularly pleasing, even during night scenes. Examples of evening scenes with nice detail and colour can be found at 42:36 and 63:16.

    The colour is reasonably bright and vivid. While the film has a 60s look overall (occasionally muted), there are moments when the colour is rich and vibrant (see the beads on the curtain at 63:33). One aspect that detracts from the picture is the use of some very poor rear projection shots (see 12:48), and some very murky underwater scenes.

    For a film which is now over 35 years old, there was very little damage evident. There were no MPEG artefacts to be seen, and negative and positive artefacts are small and infrequent. Examples can be seen at 9:41 and 60:24 (the film has apparently been scratched at this point), but these are exceptions to the generally fine presentation.

    The subtitles (and you have 25 of them to choose from) are not very accurate. While conveying the action adequately, they do not follow the spoken word too closely. One example sees the original dialogue "That's it, you're doing fine boys" become the subtitle "That's it boys".

    The disc is RSDL formatted, but no layer change is noticeable - it may be during a fade.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio on the disc is rather poor, despite having been remixed in 5.1 channel sound.

    There are 5 audio tracks on the disc, including a 5.1 Dolby Digital remix and a restoration of the original mono sound presented as a Dolby Digital 2.0 track. In addition, there are 3 foreign language tracks: German, Italian and French. I listened to all of the 5.1 track, significant portions of the 2.0 mono track, and excerpts from the French track. The latter includes an actor dubbing for Elvis who is nothing like him, but given the distinctive nature of Presley's vocal cords, that is hardly surprising.

    The dialogue quality on both English tracks is fine, with good audio sync. As is common in these films, the sync during songs is less than stellar, and is worse in this film than in others I have watched recently.

    As mentioned earlier the musical score is pretty dire, and for once the Elvis Presley songs fail to compensate.

    Surround presence in the 5.1 track is rather ordinary, with hardly any sound emanating from the rear channels. Luckily, the sound in the songs is a little richer. The mono track is also rather thinner than usual but again is not too bad in the songs.

    The subwoofer sees a little activity plunking along on both English tracks, but not much else.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Sorry, not on the Presley films from Paramount. Warners include the theatrical trailers on their Elvis movies.

Menu

    Static. The Scene Selection menu has only 14 choices. The songs are not among them.

    The Region 1 version of this disc comes with fewer language tracks than the Region 4, but is similar otherwise. Given the reasonable picture on offer here, the Region 4 version is preferred by way of its superior PAL transfer.

    This is a pretty poor entry in the Elvis Presley DVD series. The plot is lame, the songs are not up to standard, and the audio is rather thin. Only the reasonable picture represents a reason to prefer this to a VHS tape. Die-hard Presley fans will probably purchase, but casual fans should look elsewhere (Fun in Acapulco would be a reasonable place to start).

    The video quality is quite good ...

    ... the audio is not.

    The extras are nowhere to be seen.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall