WHITEHOUSE ROCK
hen Elvis Presley visited President Richard Nixon in the White House on December 21, 1970, it produced a mind-boggling photograph that went on to be the most requested image in the US National Archives. That meeting is now a feature film. “Before I saw the script I was like, Really? ” agrees its director, Liza Johnson. “But when I read it I understood – particularly now, when Katy Perry is on tour with Hillary Clinton and the other presidential candidate is a reality- television star. It really recognises the absurdity of having the two of them in the same room.” At the centre of Elvis & Nixon is Michael Shannon’s Presley, equal parts delusion and canniness. “A lot of the film is focused on the process of getting Elvis to the Oval Office,” explains the actor. “It’s not like he showed up and
Wthey opened the front door. Nixon didn’t want to meet with him. The President can’t just meet with rock stars whenever they decide to show up, so it was a fairly elaborate process to get the two of them together.” All true – as is a surprising amount of the scrupulously researched script. Though not endorsed by the Presley estate, the writers – including actor Joey Sagal, whose father Boris directed Elvis flick Girl Happy – worked with “Memphis Mafia” member Jerry Schilling, played in the film by British actor Alex Pettyfer. This means there’s no Elvis on the soundtrack, his place taken by a possibly more redolent selection of Southern sounds from such as Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Creedence Clearwater Revival. “We tried to embrace the pleasure of the detail,” says Johnson. “Even the car that Jerry drives is the exact same Cadillac Eldorado convertible with red leather interior that Elvis bought for him, and that’s literally the suit that Elvis wore to meet Nixon. There’s such an industry of tribute artists that companies make them from the original patterns.” Some, of course, is guess work, particularly inside the
Elvis & Nixon brings the King’s historic meeting with Leader Of The Free World™ to the big screen.