Rating: 
Summary: Elvis in a homesteading, laid-back image.
Review: "Follow That Dream", believe it or not, was the first Elvis movie I saw. I first saw it about 10 years ago and own it. I watch it occasionally from time to time. This isn't a real top-notch Elvis film for me since because Elvis constantly looks tired and looks disinterested. It might have been the heat since it was done in the summer in Florida and temperatures went above 100. Elvis had to change his shirt constantly in one day. My mama loves this one. She's the one who started me off with my admiration of Elvis and everything about him. Now I'm a bigger Evis fan at the age of 15. This is something Elvis fans have to see at least once. You won't regret it. It gives you a down-home laid back country feeling as a rural Southern family settles on a "public-settled" beach, run a fishing equipment rental business, and try to keep gangsters from taking over.
Rating:
Summary: Elvis in a homesteading, laid-back image.
Review: "Follow That Dream", believe it or not, was the first Elvis movie I saw. I first saw it about 10 years ago and own it. I watch it occasionally from time to time. This isn't a real top-notch Elvis film for me since because Elvis constantly looks tired and looks disinterested. It might have been the heat since it was done in the summer in Florida and temperatures went above 100. Elvis had to change his shirt constantly in one day. My mama loves this one. She's the one who started me off with my admiration of Elvis and everything about him. Now I'm a bigger Evis fan at the age of 15. This is something Elvis fans have to see at least once. You won't regret it. It gives you a down-home laid back country feeling as a rural Southern family settles on a "public-settled" beach, run a fishing equipment rental business, and try to keep gangsters from taking over.
Rating:
Summary: Perry Mason meets Sheriff Taylor on Gilligan's Island
Review: A nice Elvis movie. My favorite of his 30 or so times before the lens of Hollywood's cameras. This is Elvis as Andy Griffith. Tough enough as a peace officer yet we can't be sure he is really aware of what he is doing to cause so much trouble for the bad guys. The bad guy gambler here is Simon Oakland. If you like a menacing Simon Oakland, also watch "The Night Stalker" with Darren McGavin. Elvis sings some good songs and drives a great looking old Model A. This is very laid back and has a courtroom scene with a nice surprise. Most of the film takes place on the beach. Tom Willett
Rating: 
Summary: Fabulous movie; why no wide screen?
Review: A non-typical "Elvis Movie" with charming story line, terrific acting by The King, great supporting cast with Authur O'Connell, Joanna Moore (Tatum O'Neil's mom), Simon Oakland and Roland Winters (who Elvis movie fans will remember as Elvis' father in "Blue Hawaii"). This movie could have been the pilot for the Beverly Hillbillies with Elvis as a Jethro Bodean meets Peter Sellers "Chauncy The Gardener" from Being There character. Elvis fans will love his performance, particulary as the family's lawyer in the courtroom scene near the end of the film. Very tourching performance. Great bit of rock trivia from this movie: Florida native Tom Petty met Elvis on the set of this movie when he was a kid and was inspired to pursue a career in music. Also, Bruce Springsteen often referenced this movie from the stage during his 1985 Born In The USA Tour and performed his own version of the title track, "Follow That Dream". I've waited several years for this movie to come out on DVD and have seen it before on Turner Classics in wide screen; it was wonderful. Why on earth MGM is releasing the DVD in full screen format is a complete mystery. What a disappointment. Great movie, lousy format.
Rating:
Summary: A down to earth comedy
Review: A very underrated Elvis film. Elvis is a natural in this story of homesteading in Florida - some of the lines are real beauties. Great locations too! This is not your regular Elvis film - he get's good support from the rest of the cast. Go on - give it a go - you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Rating:
Summary: Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Bodine
Review: Amiable comedy set in Florida, following the high jinks of a non-traditional family homesteading on a public beach, is perhaps Elvis's most under-appreciated film. Based on Richard Powell's novel "Pioneer, Go Home!", "Follow That Dream" is the only Elvis movie to inspire me to read a book. Yes, it's that good. In a subtle and funny performance, Elvis is Toby Kwimper, a naive hunk helping his dad, feisty Pop Kwimper (estimable character actor Arthur O'Connell), provide for their extended family of four orphaned wards, including nubile, nineteen year old Holly (pretty Anne Helm). Lackadaisical by nature, Toby is oblivious to Holly's budding sexuality and distracts himself from the attempted seduction of a conniving social worker (sultry Joanna Moore) in amusing fashion, by reciting his multiplication tables. When a clandestine gambling den operated by two hoods (Simon Oakland and Jack Kruschen, both very good) threatens the tranquility of the thriving homestead community, "Sheriff" Toby all but accidentally turns the tables on them and their goons with tactics learned in the Army - and never suspects they were gangsters who meant to kill him. Slow but not stupid, Toby is like a revisionist Jethro Bodine, better looking and with better lines, and Elvis plays him to perfection. While not a musical, "Follow That Dream" has a fair amount of disposable music (including "Old Top of Old Smokey"!) that, thankfully, doesn't detract from the flick's overall success as a quirky family comedy. The rather pat courtroom climax, wherein Miss Moore (best known as pulse-quickening county nurse Peggy McMillan on "The Andy Griffith Show") accuses Pop Kwimper of being an unfit father and suggests Toby and Holly have an unwholesome relationship, introduces serious undertones that disrupt the film's sunny vibe, but only briefly. Miss Moore isn't the only Mayberry alumnus in the cast: Howard McNear (Floyd the Barber), has a small role as a skittish banker. Elvis is said to have adored this gentle comic actor, who also appeared in "Blue Hawaii."
Rating:
Summary: Now you've seen everything
Review: Criminals, slow-witted sheriff, bank hold-up, homesteading, happy family, fishing..... all in one movie. This is the story of Mr Kwimper and his son Toby, as well as a girl (Holly), a little girl Ariadne, and twin boys they have took in. They're one very uneducated and purty funny bunch. Toby ain't no gal charmer here - he's a sort of a slow-witted sweethear of a guy and he sure done a good job. The little clan settle down on government property to homestead and start a fishing business. That's about it for plot. As for subplots, a social worker comes along to give Toby a word association test. She's a weird one. Very strange indeed - and later appears at a hearing in court when it is being decided whether Mr Kwimper and Toby are fit to raise the twin boys and tries to prove that they are not. In my opinion SHE weren't fit to be no social worker. You just gotta watch the movie to figure that one out. This is a great movie and sure is a nice change of pace from the regular ''interchangeable Elvis movie formula''. It's real hickish, honey, it's very hickishness its indescribable charm. Sure does have a sweet endin', ya know, Elvis givin' Holly some sugar... Go on out, at least rent this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Elvis delivers a great comedy performance! One of his best !
Review: Elvis is in great form in "Follow That Dream",and this film shows just how wonderful his acting can be when given a good script to work with! The songs: "What A Wonderful Life", "I'm Not The Marrying Kind", "Sound Advice", "Follow That Dream" and "Angel" are among some of Elvis' best movie songs! Another song called "A Whistling Tune" was recorded for this movie, but was dropped before the film's release. It was re-recorded and included in Elvis' next film "Kid Galahad".I was very pleased to see "Follow That Dream" coming out on DVD...however, you guys at Amazon need to correct the technical details above concerning the DVD release! You have it listed as being available in Full-Frame only, when it is actually both Full-Frame AND Widescreen! I was very dissapointed when I first read this information here, and didn't realize that it was ALSO in widescreen until I saw a copy at the store! A great film with wonderful performances by the entire cast, which includes Arthur O'Connell, Ann Helm and Simon Oakland!
Rating:
Summary: Elvis delivers a great comedy performance! One of his best !
Review: Elvis is in great form in "Follow That Dream",and this film shows just how wonderful his acting can be when given a good script to work with! The songs: "What A Wonderful Life", "I'm Not The Marrying Kind", "Sound Advice", "Follow That Dream" and "Angel" are among some of Elvis' best movie songs! Another song called "A Whistling Tune" was recorded for this movie, but was dropped before the film's release. It was re-recorded and included in Elvis' next film "Kid Galahad".I was very pleased to see "Follow That Dream" coming out on DVD...however, you guys at Amazon need to correct the technical details above concerning the DVD release! You have it listed as being available in Full-Frame only, when it is actually both Full-Frame AND Widescreen! I was very dissapointed when I first read this information here, and didn't realize that it was ALSO in widescreen until I saw a copy at the store! A great film with wonderful performances by the entire cast, which includes Arthur O'Connell, Ann Helm and Simon Oakland!
Rating:
Summary: The Role Elvis Was Born to Play
Review: Every so often, an actor plays a role that fits like their own skin, a perfect match between character and performer. George C. Scott as Patton. Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale. Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade. Madonna as Evita. Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh. Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, just to name a few.
To that list, I add Elvis Presley as Toby Kwimper.
Yes, I know; as an actor Elvis was pretty much a good singer and an okay dancer. Most of his movie performances are ho-hum, looking back on them decades later. However, in the case of Follow That Dream the persona of Toby Kwimper, a young man of whom one of the other characters observes, "His heart is pure and his head is empty and you can't beat that combination," is brilliantly portrayed by Elvis, one of the few genuinely good-hearted actors ever to hit Hollywood.
Toby Kwimper, an Innocent from the swamplands of New Jersey's Pine Barrens, has to deal with all kinds of dangers of modern life that would cause a less optimistic and lucky hero to quail. The plot is fairly simple.
On a trip to Florida to visit relatives, Toby, his Pop (ably played by Arthur O'Connell), his twin kid brothers Teddy and Eddy, his baby sister Ariadne and Holly (Anne Helm), a babysitter who is no kin to him, run out of gas on a state highway not yet open to traffic that Pop had driven down. Stranded on a coast road, the family group improvises, adapts and overcomes to set up camp with no real equipment by the road on dredge spoil used to fill in the land so the road could be made. The 'pioneers' are truly on virgin land; it didn't exist a couple of months before and the State did not bother to title it.
After a few days of roughing it, feeding themselves (and quite well) on nature's bounty, Civilization and Authority show up in the form of H. Arthur King, the local Highway Superintendent. He goes bananas at the sight of (to his eyes) a bunch of bums camping beside his newly made highway, climbs on his high bureaucratic horse and orders them out. Pop, however, an expert at dealing with governmental bureaucrats after years spent on various programs like welfare, AFDC, WIC and many others, climbs on his own high horse and refuses to leave, citing an 1820 law about homesteading. He swears out a statement describing the land parcel, and the family settles in to prove up their land.
Not one to give up easily, King sics the local child welfare supervisor and clinical psychologist, Alicia Claypoole, onto the Kwimpers. The idea is to prove that Pop and Toby aren't fit to raise the kids, threaten them with the removal of the children, and thus force the Kwimpers to flee. Coincidentally, Alicia has the idea of having Toby jump her bones - except that Toby is so innocently naive he can't tell a pass from a hand-off (although Holly, who has her own cap set for Toby, certainly can!). Toby's bewilderment at Alicia's advances will have consequences later.
Toby himself has adventures in the Innocents Abroad vein. When Holly comes up with the idea of starting a little fishing business, a trip to town by Toby to apply for a small business loan ends up with his being mistaken for a bank robber, with humorous results. When Alicia tries to subvert the Kwimpers' homesteading by showing Toby how much easier life would be in government housing, he ends up recruiting a retired couple to move out to the Kwimpers' highway bridge and homestead the virign land on the other side of the highway. And when two gangsters (Simon Oakland and Jack Kruschen) set up next door to the Kwimpers because the land isn't policed by the county or the state (more of King's handiwork), Toby serves as proof that God watches out for children, drunks and fools when by a series of misadventures and just being neighborly he demolishes their casino, wrecks their dock, bankrupts their operation and runs them out of town.
The climax of the picture comes when Alicia Claypoole has the twins and Ariadne taken away from Pop on specious psychological grounds, forcing a confrontation in front of a judge who has the power to make the removal permanent. Once more, it's up to Toby to make things right - if he can.
Follow That Dream is taken from Richard Powell's book, Pioneer, Go Home! and thanks to screenwriter Charles Lederer astutely deciding not to monkey with a well-crafted book, hews very closely to the novel. He also manages to keep the feel of Toby and Pop's speech patterns and most of the book's original dialogue. Lederer cut only two sequences from the novel. The first was the hurricane which H. Arthur King hoped to use as a pretext to break the Kwimpers' continuous occupancy of their land as required by the homesteading act, and it is not missed. The second is the epilogue, and that isn't missed either. Frankly, he did one of the best jobs of adapting a book to the screen that I have ever seen; and considering the vivisection usually performed on original novels in Hollywood, that is praise indeed.
The five songs Elvis sings are nothing special, but that doesn't matter. In my opinion, this is the one Elvis Presley movie that could stand on its own even if he didn't sing a note. Nobody is going to mistake Follow That Dream for anything but light entertainment; but entertained you will be, and delightfully so. As I said, this is the role Elvis Presley was born to play, and he plays it to perfection.
|
