History:
1967 saw the beginning of Elvis' rise back to relevancy, but he didn't get there right away -- at the dawn of the year, he was still on his three-picture-a-year grind, pretending that the new decade, with all its ever-intensifying cultural upheaval, wasn't happening. And those pictures featured even less Elvis than ever before -- as writer Allen Weiss pointedly remembered, "I was asked to create a believable framework for twelve songs and lots of girls," but as 1967 ground on, those twelve songs became seven, and then five. This was partly due to Hollywood's law of diminishing returns, partly to the King's own growing dissatisfaction with his career, which manifested itself in passive-aggressive behavior and sometimes, even, outright rebellion. He had not gone to Sun Records looking to be a D-list movie star.But there was at least one good reason to stay away from the mic during this tumultuous year: Elvis' marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu at the beginning of May. Whether or not Presley was still considered a rock star, he was definitely on his way to becoming a family man, and for a (formerly) poor Southerner in the Sixties, this was a huge and necessary milestone. It's hard to say how much this newfound maturity manifested itself in the amazing career renaissance Elvis would pull off before the next year was out, but Colonel Tom Parker was demonstrating some very clear signs of nervousness during '67, tightening the reins on his show pony in order to protect his investment. Elvis' transformation into adulthood seemed to be mirroring the country's, but no one -- not his lifelong fans, and certainly not the growing bohemian baby-boomer army -- could have known that yet. Case in point: Easy Come, Easy Go, his twenty-third film, was released on April 22, a mere thirteen days before his twenty-fourth, Double Trouble. And no one cared. Not even, chillingly, the two separate studios involved.
Next... Elvis 1967 timeline
