Elvis (1979)

The global success of Halloween paved the way for the most unusual and demanding project of Carpenter's career: as a passionate Elvis Presley fan, he took on this mammoth TV production, which tells the story of the life of the ‘King’, who had died two years earlier, from his first musical steps to his triumphant comeback in Las Vegas in 1969. Carpenter was attracted by the challenge of making a film outside the genre, in which he could concentrate on the acting. The result was convincing: Kurt Russell's brilliant performance as Elvis remains unmatched, with other outstanding performances coming from Shelley Winters as his influential mother and Pat Hingle as his music manager Colonel Tom Parker. In the USA, the nearly three-hour film was celebrated as a thrilling television event, and shorter cinema versions were subsequently created for Europe and Australia. We are showing the longest of these versions. (C.H.)