This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Kissing Cousins is based on Presley playing two parts, one as an army officer and the other as a country hillbilly. Both characterisations fail. This was a dud script with lots of hillbilly nonsense with an excruciating dialogue. Presley doesn't have the ability to put across these dual roles and Albertson who can act, shows how wooden Presley in this daft film. Even the songs are frankly poor, except for the eponymous song, which introduces the film. Presley did have some acting ability but clearly His manager Parker didn't think they were good enough for a wider critical audience , otherwise he wouldn't have pushed Elvis into these crass films. Yes, they made lots of money at the box office, but essentially they were wasting his time and talent! I feel that Parker should take the blame since these films undermined Preley's reputation as an actor and singer.

This movie, tho not one of Elvis' best, certainly isn't as bad as some reviews have stated. Those who say it is Elvis' worst film have obviously never seen "Double Trouble", "Clambake", "Speedway", "Stay Away Joe" and a couple others. The movie is fun, if not brilliant and the blond wig he wore is tacky and a couple of the songs are pretty horrible (Barefoot Ballad). However, the supporting cast is quite good headed up by Oscar winning actor Jack Albertson. It also features the wonderful character actor Arthur O'Connell and Glenda Farrell. Batgirl from TV's "Batman", Yvonne Craig, is in fine form as Elvis' love interest. As for the music, the title tracks are pretty good. "Tender Feeling" is a wonderful ballad and "Catching on Fast" is a lively rock tinged number that goes down quite well. It is also apparent from many of those who did not like the film at all that they did not pay attention as they all claim one of the Elvis characters, Josh, is an army officer. Not so. He is an air force officer. Go back and look folks. At any rate, I've seen every Elvis movie ever made many times and this one is worth a watch.

Kissin' Cousins (1964) * 1/2 (out of 4) An Army man (Elvis) tries to talk his redneck cousin (Elvis) into letting the government put up a missile site on his property. As you can tell, the big story here is that Elvis plays a duel role and in fact he's the best thing about the movie but more on that later. The rest of the film is pretty damn lame from start to finish with horrible songs and horrible performance. With a title like this I was expecting a lot of Southern stereotypes but we don't even get any of that, which just makes the film all the more bland. The supporting players are all incredibly weak but I guess they knew how stupid the story was. The actual story never really makes any sense, which just makes the film a drag to go through. Back to Elvis, I thought he gave one of his better performances here in both roles. He spent time in the Army so he looked and acted very realistic in the scenes early on when "reporting" to higher officials. He was also a redneck so I thought he pulled the Southern thing off as well but what the hell was up with that blonde wig? The 'trick shots' used to hide The King's double are the only laughs in the film.

Not only does Kissin' Cousins contain a bad script for Presley but this Presley outing contained a bad script for two Presley's. This movie was made in 17 days and it is obvious that the old saying is true, "put forth your best effort or it will be a flop." Presley plays two character's in this 1964 attempt, date's his own cousins and sings to everyone about being barefoot. Not a movie for academy award fans but Presley fans will enjoy. Presley couldn't have been proud of this one.If you decide to watch this movie just be careful not to fall in love with your cousins after you watch it.You may be a redneck, if you go to a family BBQ to find a date.