Blue Hawaii (song)

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“Blue Hawaii” is a popular song written by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger for the 1937 Paramount Pictures film Waikiki Wedding, starring Bing Crosby and Shirley Ross. Crosby recorded a version with backing by Lani McIntyre and His Hawaiians, which was released in 1937 as the B-side of “Sweet Leilani.” This reached the No. 5 spot in the charts of the day during a 13-week-stay 

The song subsequently received numerous cover versions, most successfully as the title track of the 1961 Elvis Presley film, the soundtrack of which stayed at #1 on the album chart for twenty consecutive weeks.

Other recordings

• Al Bowlly – (1937)

• Bing Crosby – Decca 1175 (1937). Crosby also recorded the song for the album Bing: A Musical Autobiography in 1954.

• Patti Page – Page 3 – A Collection of Her Most Famous Songs (1957 album)

• Billy Vaughn – Dot Records 45-15879 (1958): This recording peaked at No.37 on the US Hot 100.

• Frank Sinatra – Come Fly with Me (1958)

• Andy Williams – Two Time Winners (1959) and To You Sweetheart, Aloha (1959)

• George Greeley – Warner Bros. Records WS-1366 (1960)

• Jane Morgan – Jane Morgan Sings More Golden Hits Kapp Records KL-1275 (1961)

• Elvis Presley – Blue Hawaii (1961)

• Pat Boone with Shirley Boone – I Love You Truly (1962)

• Willie Nelson – Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)

• Suburban Rhythm – Suburban Rhythm (1997)

• David Byrne – Big Love: Hymnal (2008)

• Connie Francis – Blue Hawaii

• Captain James and His Saxophonists – Blue Hawaii

• Vikinger – Blue Hawaii

• Captain Cook und seine singenden Saxophone – Blue Hawaii

• Ray Conniff – Blue Hawaii

• Joni James – Blue Hawaii

• The Waikikis – Blue Hawaii

• Blue Hawaii – Instrumental

• Blue Hawaii – played on guitar by Eric

• The Big Ben Hawaiian Band – Blue Hawaii

• Blue Hawaii / Yuzo Kamaya / ブルーハワイ / 加山雄三

• The Mantovani Orchestra – Blue Hawaii

• Nora Aunor – Blue Hawaii

• Richard Clayderman – Blue Hawaii

Blue Hawaii (Film)

Blue Hawaii
By www.movieposter.com, Fair use, Link Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Norman Taurog
Screenplay by	Hal Kanter
Story by	Allan Weiss
Produced by	Hal B. Wallis
Starring	Elvis Presley Joan Blackman Angela Lansbury Nancy Walters
Cinematography	Charles Lang Jr.
Edited by	Terry O. Morse
Music by	Joseph J. Lilley
Production company	Hal Wallis Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	November 22, 1961 (United States)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$4.2 million (US/ Canada rentals)

Blue Hawaii is a 1961 American musical romantic comedy-drama film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Elvis Presley. The screenplay by Hal Kanter was nominated by the Writers Guild of America in 1962 in the category of Best Written American Musical. The film opened at number two in box-office receipts for that week and, despite mixed reviews from critics, finished as the 10th top-grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 in the Variety national box office survey, earning $5 million. The film won a fourth place prize Laurel Award in the category of Top Musical of 1961.

Plot

Having been released from the Army, Chadwick “Chad” Gates is eager to return to Hawaii with his surfboard, his native Hawaiian beach friends, and his mixed-race girlfriend Maile Duval.

His mother, Sarah Lee, wants him to follow in his father’s footsteps and take over management at the Great Southern Hawaiian Fruit Company, the family business, but Chad is reluctant and goes to work as a tour guide at his girlfriend’s agency. His slightly scatter-brained boss is Mr. Chapman.

The first clients Chad has are an attractive school teacher, Abigail Prentice, and four teenage female students. One of the students, 17-year-old Ellie Corbett, seems self-centered and doesn’t get along with the other three, but she becomes smitten with Chad.

Chad’s girlfriend, Maile, becomes jealous of Abigail, who is quite fond of Chad. After Ellie’s flirtatious ways with another tourist cause a wild fight to erupt in a restaurant, Mr. Chapman fires Chad. Maile quits her job in protest. Maile and Chad independently continue guiding Abigail and the four youths, taking them to Kaua’i.

One night Ellie attempts to seduce Chad in his hotel room, but he refuses her advances; at the same moment, Maile pays a surprise visit to the hotel.

Ellie despondently flees in a stolen jeep, intending to drown herself in the ocean. Before she can, Chad pulls her out, attempts to speak to her, but then decides to punish her with a spanking. In the next scene, the girls, including Ellie, are having breakfast. Ellie is now pleasant, friendly and well-mannered, and jokes about the spanking. Meanwhile, Abigail has found romance with Jack Kelman, a longtime business partner of Chad’s father. With Jack’s help, Chad and his father resolve their differences about Chad’s future.

Chad and Maile form their own tourism business—Gates of Hawaii—and begin arrangements to provide tourist services for his father’s large network of fruit salesmen in the U.S. and Canada. The film ends with Chad’s and Maile’s lavish outdoor wedding.

Cast

• Elvis Presley as Chadwick “Chad” Gates
• Joan Blackman as Maile Duval
• Angela Lansbury as Sarah Lee Gates

• Nancy Walters as Abigail Prentice
• Roland Winters as Fred Gates
• John Archer as Jack Kelman
• Howard McNear as Mr. Chapman
• Steve Brodie as Tucker Garvey
• Darlene Tompkins as Patsy Simon

• Iris Adrian as Enid Garvey
• Hilo Hattie as Waihila
• Jenny Maxwell as Ellie Corbett
• Pamela Austin as Selena “Sandy” Emerson (as Pamela Kirk)
• Christian Kay as Beverly Martin
• Lani Kai as Carl Tanami
• Jose De Vega as Ernie Gordon
• Frank Atienza as Ito O’Hara
• Tiki Hanalei as Ping Pong

Production

Blue Hawaii was the first of three Elvis films shot in Hawaii, followed by Girls! Girls! Girls! in 1962 and Paradise, Hawaiian Style in 1965. Producer Hal B. Wallis was keen to put Presley in a film that showed how the army affected a man. Actress Juliet Prowse, who had starred with Presley in GI Blues, was approached to be his love interest again. But after her demands were put forward, Paramount decided to drop her for the role, choosing Joan Blackman instead. Presley was apparently so pale before shooting that Wallis personally recommended a brand of tanning lamp to darken his skin. The film was announced in the fall of 1960 as Hawaii Beach Boy. At the time, film producer Walter Mirisch had a film titled Hawaii in production, and he was upset that Wallis had chosen such a similar name.

Presley arrived in Hawaii on March 18, 1961, to prepare for a charity concert he was giving on March 25 to raise funds for the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. He arrived at the recording studio on March 21 to start recording the film’s soundtrack. Three weeks later, location filming had finished, including scenes at Waikiki Beach, Diamond Head, Mount Tantalus, and Hanauma Bay, a volcanic crater that is open to the sea, near the bedroom community of Hawaii Kai, a few miles away from Waikiki. After location filming, the crew returned to the Paramount lot to finish other scenes for the film. Presley relaxed during filming by giving karate demonstrations with his friend and employee, Red West, which resulted in Presley’s fingers becoming bruised and swollen. Wallis warned the female stars of the film to avoid parties Presley hosted because they were turning up for shooting looking tired.

Wallis used the box-office returns from Blue Hawaii to finance an upcoming Wallis film, 1964’s Becket, starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.

Presley was 26 at the time this film was released, and a not yet 36-year-old Angela Lansbury played his character’s mother.

Nancy Walters, who was cast as the older schoolteacher, was in reality only 18 months older than Presley.

Much of the film was shot on location at the Coco Palms Resort on the east coast of Kauai.

Although it is mentioned in the film that Chad’s parents live in Kāhala, one of the most expensive and exclusive areas of Honolulu in 1961, the view from their “lanai” (porch or terrace) shows Diamond Head as it appears from Waikiki and downtown Honolulu. In actuality, Kāhala is on the other side of Diamond Head from Waikiki.

Several scenes were filmed in and around Waikiki Beach, including the opening driving scenes and the office scene across the street from the “International Market”. The scenes in which Chad’s clients stay in a hotel and in which he picks up his tour group – as well as those on the beach where he spends time with Maile – were all filmed on the property now known as the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Waikiki Beach.

Reception

Howard Thompson of The New York Times called the film “blandly uneventful” with a “nonsensical and harmless” plot, though he wrote that Presley “delivers the songs and rhythmical spasms right on schedule. We counted fourteen tunes, about half of them replete with ukulele trimmings and exotic, weaving dancers. One of them, a number called ‘Beach Boy Blues,’ is nifty, and Presley delivers it accordingly. No kidding.” Variety wrote, “Hal Kanter’s breezy screenplay, from a story by Allan Weiss, is the slim, but convenient, foundation around which Wallis and staff have erected a handsome, picture-postcard production crammed with typical South Seas musical hulaballoo … Under Norman Taurog’s broad direction, Presley, in essence, is playing himself—a role sure to delight his ardent fans.” Harrison’s Reports graded the film “Fair”, adding: “As is the custom in a Presley production, the crooner-gyrater dominates the running time of the film. That is why, it is more the pity, now that he has so many films under his acting belt that he still continues to deliver such an embarrassingly poor performance.” John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film “does a lot for the ‘paradise of the Pacific,’ showing its foamy waves, palm trees, luaus and a couple of plush hotels, but not very much for Elvis’ fans (what age bracket does he appeal to now?) … One of these days Elvis will play a straight role with substance, and we’ll definitely find out whether he can act or not.”

Accolades

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2004: AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs:
  • “Blue Hawaii” – Nominated

Soundtrack

Presley’s remake of the title song introduced it to an audience too young to remember Bing Crosby‘s original hit version.

The soundtrack album was on the Billboard Pop Albums chart for 79 weeks, where it spent 20 weeks at #1. It has been certified by the RIAA for sales of three million copies in the U.S.

The soundtrack album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1961 in the category of Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from a Motion Picture or Television.

The soundtrack featured the hit song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” sung by Elvis, which is certified Platinum by the RIAA, for U.S. sales in excess of one million copies. The song peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart for six weeks, as well as topping the British charts in 1962.

Blue Hawaii (soundtrack)

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
MusicHound
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Rough Guides

Blue Hawaii is the fourth soundtrack album by the American singer Elvis Presley, released on RCA Victor Records in mono and stereo, LPM/LSP 2426, on October 20, 1961. It is the soundtrack to the 1961 film of the same name starring Presley. In the United States, the album spent 20 weeks at the number one slot and 39 weeks in the Top 10 on Billboard‘s Top Pop LPs chart. It was certified Gold on December 21, 1961, Platinum and 2× Platinum on March 27, 1992, and 3× Platinum on July 30, 2002, by the Recording Industry Association of America. On the US Top Pop Albums chart, Blue Hawaii is second only to the soundtrack of West Side Story as the most successful soundtrack album of the 1960s.

Content

RCA and Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, had initially planned a schedule of one soundtrack and one popular music release per year for Presley, in addition to the requisite four singles. To coincide with the location of the film, touches of Hawaiian music were included, from instrumentation to the traditional song “Aloha ‘Oe“. The title song was taken from the 1937 Bing Crosby film Waikiki Wedding, and “Hawaiian Wedding Song” dates from a 1926 operetta.

Recording sessions took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood on March 21, 22, and 23, 1961. The songs “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Rock-A-Hula Baby” were pulled off the album for two sides of a single released on November 21, 1961. The A-side “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” which became the standard closer for a Presley concert in the 1970s, went to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, while the b-side charted independently at number 23.

Reception

The Blue Hawaii soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1961 in the category of Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from a Motion Picture or Television.

The success of this soundtrack and its predecessor G. I. Blues, both of which sold in much greater quantity than Presley’s recent studio albums of the time, Elvis Is Back! and Something for Everybody, set the pace for the rest of the decade. Parker and Presley would focus almost exclusively on film work for much of the 1960s. This formula, though initially lucrative, soon led to Presley’s career becoming stagnant and his cultural relevance declining amidst a changing musical landscape.

Reissues

Blue Hawaii was reissued on compact disc in 1997 and again in 2008. The latter edition was a deluxe 2-disc release on the Follow That Dream label that featured numerous alternate takes. It also corrected the error with the 1997 issue that incorrectly reversed the stereo channels. Five songs from this album appear on the 1995 compendium soundtrack box set Command Performances: The Essential 60s Masters II: “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, “Rock-a-Hula Baby”, “Blue Hawaii,” “Hawaiian Wedding Song,” and “Beach Boy Blues.”

Track listing

Original release

Side One

Side Two

Charts

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