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Clambake

Video

Clambake
Rating:
3.2 / 5
Released: 2001/01 by MGM Home Entertainment
Elvis is a millionaire's son who wants to make it on his own, so he trades places with water-skiing instructor Hutchins in Miami. He plays a rich oilman's son pretending to be a water-skiing instructor.

ElvisNews review

The box carries the same picture as the original movie soundtrack and the DVD itself is just dark blue, with the movie title written in the same style as on the box.

Special features are as usual not very special. Extra language (Spanish), subtitles in French and Spanish, the original trailer and a menu to choose the chapters.

When viewing the content the first thing you'll notice is that the picture quality is pretty sharp. Too bad, since you can see all the dust, scratches and other distortions too well now. Especially during the beginning of "Confidence" the image is terrible, but who wants to watch that part anyway? In other words, the video that was released just a couple of years ago had a better quality.

"Clambake" isn't one of Elvis' better movies, to say it friendly. Immortal songs like "Confidence", "Who Needs Money" and "Hey, Hey, Hey" don't make make much hearts beat faster. Even songs that could have been something do not turn out very well. Obviously Elvis wasn't happy with "You Don't Know Me", and indeed the studio version he recorded later is much, much better, but he didn't make the effort to do better versions of e.g. "A House That Has Everything", which has a catchy tune, and "The Girl I Never Loved".

For those that really wants to know where the movie is about:

Scott (Elvis), a rich guy, who does want to be judged on his qualities instead of his money, switches places with poor ski-instructor Tom. Scott falls in love with a poor girl, who is looking for a rich guy. He helps her to catch one, when she does, she changes her mind. In between the scenes Scott wins a boatrace, the girl wants to marry him and faints when she finds out he is a rich guy too.

Tina S wrote on August 19, 2005
4 stars for the song You Don't Know Me 1 star for the film
Rating: 4 / 5
Mystery Rider wrote on June 29, 2007
Cute story, loveable characters...worth owning
Rating: 4 / 5
JerryNodak wrote on July 11, 2007
Fun film with mostly just okay songs. Nothing more or less. I have no problem enjoying it from time to time.
Rating: 3 / 5
Iron Man wrote on August 13, 2007
The Girl I Never Loved is probably the best song of the movie, since Elvis' voice is not so sincere in the movie version of You Don't Know Me. The rest of the songs don't deserve mentioning, thanks God there is a chance to skip them. The story itself is pretty close to anything else Elvis has done at the time, but still is a little touching at times (ok, maybe I am giving too much credit to this film, but there are a couple of fine episodes).
Rating: 3 / 5