‘Elvis Stories’: Ben Stiller’s crazy and unknown short about the King of Rock

While Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of ‘Elvis’ triumphs at the box office and everyone remembers other adaptations of the King of Rock to the big screen such as ‘Elvis & Nixon’ or ‘Elvis’ by Kurt Russel and John Carpenter for television in 1979, and many try to find the differences between the true story of the singer and what ‘Elvis’ tells, us We have decided to dive among the strangest appearances of the singer in the audiovisual world. and we have found PRAYED.

The urban legend that Elvis did not die, but faked his death to escape from fame and the world of entertainment, he has given incredible headlines in innumerable tabloid mystery tabloids such as the mythical ‘World News‘. And the film industry has not been immune to it.

Don Coscarelli (responsible for ‘Phantasma’, one of the horror sagas with the most deliveries), for example, captured it in the amusing ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ of 2002. In it Elvis was still alive, played by Bruce Campbell, in a nursing home with a John Fitzgerald Kennedy who had also survived the Dallas attack (only now he was black, to mislead, and was played by Ossie Davis. Together they had to face a mummy that sucks the souls of his fellow asylum seekers, sucking them in the ass. As it is.

But neither this, nor the recent ‘Elvis From Outer Space’, are the strangest adaptations of the artist to the cinema. That place could be attributed to one of Ben Stiller’s first behind-the-scenes works, ‘Elvis Stories’, a 1989 amateur short distributed on VHS and recovered just a few months ago on YouTube by ‘Famous First Films‘.

Inspired by ‘True Stories’, a 1986 film by David Byrne that was also inspired by the magus tabloid tabloids, ‘Elvis Stories’ is a collection of unconnected stories about Elvis urban legends, with a frenetic montage and video clip and a humorous mockumentary tone. And attentive to the repartazo, with names (at that time practically unknown) such as John Cusack, Mike Myers or Jeremy Piven. Like many of the best movies about “real” conspiracies and mysteries, ‘Elvis Stories’ takes these impossible urban legends and brings them to the screen.

The skits begin with “Corkey’s Elvis Patties”, where Lenny (Jeremy Piven) tells the story of Corkey (John Cusack), a chef who makes hamburgers in the shape of Elvis Presley and Graceland. People who have bought Corkey’s creations claim that food is a channel for them to hear the King’s voice.

Then comes “The Melvis Footage,” where a grocery store cashier (Amy Stiller) claims her nephew (Granville Thompson) filmed footage of Elvis shopping at her store. The third sequence is “Paxton Busby: The Elvisman”, where the main character (Paul Greco) is a folk singer who has to perform songs about Elvis, since a court has prohibited him from resembling the singer or singing his songs.

In “Elvis Lennon,” a writer named Hal Moldman (Dave Pasquesi, now seen in ‘The Bobba Fett Book’) shares his theories about how Elvis and John Lennon are THE SAME PERSON.

“Possessed” tells the story of a hairdresser named Bruce (Ben Stiller) who attacks his partner Allen (Andy Dick) by being possessed by Elvis Presley himself. Allen is further horrified when he meets Dr. Lundy (Bill Cusack), the therapist who is supposedly helping his friend.

The final skit, “The King Of Lunken”, tells the story of two Cincinnati-area golfers (Joel Murray, Ron Dean) who claim they hit a hole-in-one with the help of Elvis (Rick “Elvis” Saucedo).

All these storiesmore fun on paper than in its adaptation to the screen, it must be said) were released to the home market on VHS by Rhino Home Video, which added as a prologue the (also) Mojo Nixon’s bizarre music video ‘Elvis is Everywhere’.

So now you have something to entertain yourselves while we wait for the release date of ‘Elvis’ on HBO Max.