Hallmark’s ‘Christmas at Graceland’ has premiere
Like all Hallmark Channel holiday movies, “Christmas at Graceland” is a love story.
But in this case, boy-meets-girl takes a back seat to audience-meets-city. Romantic lead Kellie Pickler wears the lip gloss and eyeshadow, but Memphis — clean, sparkly and wrapped in a becoming blanket of faux snow — is the star.
Unveiled Nov. 15 during a Graceland Soundstage “red carpet” premiere that was packed with close to 1,600 fans, “Christmas at Graceland” gives a big fat smooch and a warm Teddy bear hug to the Bluff City in general and to Elvis’ mansion home in particular.
The 90-minute production — which made its television debut at 7 p.m. Nov. 17 — credits its screenplay to veteran Hallmark romance-wranglers Gregg Rossen and Brian Sawyer (sample titles: “Rocky Mountain Christmas,” “Undercover Bridesmaid” and “The Seven Year Hitch”). But few who watch the film would be surprised if Memphis Tourism and Elvis Presley Enterprises were named as script consultants.
“There was nothing grandma loved more than Christmas in Memphis,” says Memphis singer turned Chicago bank executive Laurel Cooper (Pickler), who has returned to her hometown during a snowy December to complete a financial merger.
“Memphis is so pretty,” enthuses Laurel’s young daughter, Emma (Claire Elizabeth Green).
“New York has its pluses, but my heart is in Memphis,” affirms handsome piano-playing concert promoter Clay Sheppard (Wes Brown), Laurel’s ex in music as well as love. (The plot basically asks: How long before the band gets back together, so to speak?)
“I love me some eggnog,” adds Laurel. (OK, we’re getting off track now...)
“Christmas at Graceland” was filmed primarily in Memphis in July, with cast members sweating beneath their winter coats and wool caps in 100-degree heat while crew members laid sheets of white cotton on the Graceland lawn and sprayed the bushes and trees with artificial snow. The movie is one of 22 new heart-tuggers set to air between now and the end of the year during the 10th annual “Countdown to Christmas” marathon, a ratings juggernaut and programming tradition that is the Hallmark Channel’s equivalent of the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” but with fewer kills if just as many teeth.
According to Hallmark, the cable channel attracts about 85 million viewers during its holiday “countdown,” and its Christmas movies frequently beat the broadcast networks in prime time. No wonder, then, that both Hallmark and Graceland executives have high hopes for “Christmas at Graceland,” which is being heavily promoted by the network and which could serve as a model for future film and television dramas produced in cooperation with the Presley estate, according to Joel Weinshanker, managing partner for Graceland Holdings LLC, the majority owner of Elvis Presley Enterprises.
Speaking before Nov. 15’s premiere at the Graceland Soundstage (the venue that is a cornerstone of the relatively new Elvis Presley’s Memphis museum-andmore tourism complex on Elvis Presley Boulevard),
Weinshanker said that Graceland is committed to “making Memphis better,” with more film and television projects and a greater diversity of exhibits, including a 2019 Muhammad Ali tribute. “We’re going to bring jobs to Memphis,” he said.
Joining Weinshanker at the premiere were Michelle Vicary, executive vice president of programming for Crown Media Family Networks, the Hallmark parent company; Eric Close, director of “Christmas at Graceland”; the movie’s male lead, Wes Brown; and various other cast members and government dignitaries.
Debuting feature director Close, who is perhaps better known as an actor (he was the mayor on “Nashville”), said “Christmas at Graceland” could have been filmed in Los Angeles, with Memphis locations recreated on a soundstage. However, such a production would have missed “the spirit or essence” of Elvis that was unmistakably present during location shooting at Graceland, Close said, especially during the movie’s most visually impressive sequence, when Pickler and Brown are reflected in the sheen of the instrument when they perform at Elvis’ actual piano, framed by vivid drapes and stained-glass peacocks.
Ornamented with performances by country singer Pickler and with needle drops from the Presley Christmas songbook, “Christmas at Graceland” implies that Memphis is a city where snow and chilly weather are not only expected but welcomed during the holidays. It’s a homey place where folks make snow globes out of Mason jars; cook “Christmas s’mores” with peppermint chocolate over campfires; debate whether Starry Nights or the Enchanted Forest at the Pink Palace have better Christmas lights (the script is decorated with Memphis references, like sugar sprinkles on a cookie); and gather at parties to play “pin the nose on the reindeer.”
It’s also a place where the concierge at The Guest House at Graceland (which probably gets more screen time than the mansion) delivers room-service ornaments when a guest hauls a live Christmas tree into her room, and where a bank executive tells Laurel: “We never work weekends, and we leave every day at 5 to be with our families.”
If this Memphis seems in some ways as unfamiliar to Memphians as snow on Christmas, well, as Vicary essentially told the crowd Nov. 15, if you want grit, don’t watch Hallmark. “It’s an honor to come to work and make programming that makes people feel good,” she said.
The good feeling was evident Nov. 15 even before the movie’s premiere, as Graceland workers handed out garlands of glowing Christmas lights to the hundreds of visitors who gathered across the street from the mansion to see country music artists Marty Stuart and Scotty McCreery symbolically flip the switch to illuminate the traditional holiday decorations that light up Elvis Presley’s famous home. Meanwhile, a Santa Claus who had undergone what a Graceland worker called an “Elvis remix” — his eyes twinkled (presumably) behind a pair of aviator shades and his traditional black belt was replaced with a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit belt — roamed the grounds, while artificial snow was pumped from a blower near the photo-op red carpet.
For many visitors, the happy vibe was genuine, and needed no encouragement.
“We come to Graceland any time we can,” said Trenton, Florida, resident Hannah Long, 24, in Memphis for the lighting ceremony with her mother, her father and her two daughters, both named for Elvis: 4-year-old Presley and 10-month-old Aron.
“When I was 18, 19, I had some tough stuff going on in my life,” Long said. “I was struggling with anxiety very bad. I would listen to Elvis if I felt a panic attack coming on, and listening to him and watching him in one of his movies was the only thing that would calm me.”
The lighting ceremony was followed by a brief live performance by McCreery and his band, across the street from the mansion. A performance also marks the end of “Christmas at Graceland,” when Laurel leaves behind her laptop and “pah charts” (i.e., pie charts — Pickler makes Dolly Parton sound like a Bowery Boy) to join Clay on an outdoor stage on the mansion grounds itself, to belt out “Joy to the World” with the accompaniment of a gospel octet. The song delivers a message of salvation, while Laurel shares another message, through dialog: “You can’t beat Christmas at Graceland.”