Ken Becker Movies

Charlie Rogers (Elvis Presley) is a coffeehouse singer who joins a financially troubled carnival in Roustabout. He is hired by owner Maggie Morgan (Barbara Stanwyck) and soon catches the eye of his pretty female co-worker Cathy Lean (Joan Freeman). Cathy's irate father Joe (Leif Erickson) clashes with Charlie when he tries to romance his daughter, but Charlie's singing helps bring in the much-needed money for the failing carnival and keeps the wolves from the big tent show. A disagreement has Charlie joining another carnival before things are smoothed out. Watch for Raquel Welch and Terry Garr in bit parts. Presley delivers 11 songs, the highlight being the Mike Leiber/Jerry Stoller tune"Little Egypt". ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The Cartwrights object to Todd McKaren's (Don Dubbins) plan to sell his family's land to ruthless miner Len Keith (Robert Simon), pointing out that the region's water supply will be polluted. McKaren's father Andy (Rhys Williams) likewise opposes the sale, if only to break up the romance between Todd and Keith's daughter Virginia (Merry Anders). Taking advantage of the situation, Keith tries to force the sale by stirring up bad blood between the the McKarens and the Cartwrights, beginning with planting diseased cattle among the Ponderosa livestock. First telecast April 9, 1960, "Bitter Water" was written by Harold Jack Bloom. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Elvis Presley stars in GI Blues as Tulsa McLean, a soldier stationed in Germany, who pulls strings to stage a big show for his fellow GI's. In the tradition of the musical chestnut The Fleet's In, Tulsa also bets his buddies that he can date "ice princess" entertainer Lili (Juliet Prowse). Song highlights include "Wooden Heart," "Blue Suede Shoes" and the title number. The spectacular box-office performance of G.I. Blues proved that Elvis' popularity had not only survived his Army tenure, but had actually increased. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Loving You was the most autobiographical of all Elvis Presley's movies, and, not coincidentally, features the most naturalistic, easygoing performance of his early career. He plays Deke Rivers, a truck driver with a penchant for singing and a raw animal magnetism where women are concerned. He attracts the business interest of publicity agent Glenda Markle (Lizabeth Scott), who sees a potential gold mine in Deke. She hires him to appear with a band that she handles, fronted by aging country & western singer Tex Warner (Wendell Corey), who used to be romantically involved with Glenda and is now a client. Pretty soon he's pulling in bigger crowds and generating more excitement than Tex did during his best days (which drives the older singer to start drinking again), but also a lot more controversy, too. Deke is so provocatively sexual a presence on-stage that some citizens in the southern and border states where the band is working think that what he does is immoral. Girls can't keep away from him, their boyfriends despise what he symbolizes, and their parents are aghast, even as concert promoter Carl Meade (James Gleason) smells a fortune to be made from this boy. Glenda parlays these disputes and a ban on one of Deke's performances into a national television event. Amid all of this, Deke reveals the private, vulnerable side that no one ever knew -- that he's not even Deke Rivers (it was a name he took off a gravestone), but an orphan named Jimmy Tompkins, and that he's never had a home. He also reveals that he's attracted to Glenda, mistaking (with her encouragement) her interest in his talent with a personal involvement, but he's also drawn the the band's female singer, Susan Jessup (Dolores Hart), who could genuinely love him, and offers him a caring family of her own that would accept him. Deke and Glenda's conflicts are eventually straightened out, and Deke gets to say his piece and sing his music on network television. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi