Paramount 1961, a Hal B. Wallis Production

movie Details

* Location filming commenched on March 17, 1961, in Hawaii, and ended on April 17.

* A working title for the film was "Hawaiian Beach Boy."

* Juliet Prowse was originally signed to play the part of Maile, but couldn't agree on personal terms.

* The film opened nationally in America on November 22, 1961

* Joan Blackman also appeared in Elvis' 10th movie "Kid Galahad."

* In Variety's top-grossing box-office poll for 1961, "Blue Hawaii" reached No.8.

Blue Hawaii Theatrical Trailer

Synopsis; Chad Gates (Elvis) is back in Honolulu after his discharge from the Army trying to figure out what to do with his life. His mother, Sarah Lee Gates (Angela Lansbury) is a very difficult person and tries to pursuade Chad to join the family pineapple business. Chad refuses. His girlfriend, Maile (Joan Blackman), tells him about a job at the travel agency as a tour guide, he decides to take the job. His first assignment is a group of 4 teenage girls and their teacher, Abigail (Nancy Walters.)

One of the teenage girls, Ellie, is a very nasty and difficult woman, and when she plays up to a drunken tourist, There is a fight between him and Chad. Arrested and jailed, Chad is bailed out by his father, looses his job. 

 

When his parents think that Maile has a bad influence on hmi, Chad leaves the house. Abigail hires Chad to take the group to Kauai anyway. At night, Ellie forces herself into Chad’s room and suddenly the phone rings. It’s Maile with their friend Jack (John Archer.) He tells he’ll meet them in the lobby, but as he’s leaving, the other girls show up looking for her. As the girls enter Chad’s room, there’s another knock on the door. This time it’s Abigail, Chad hide the other girls and lets her in. She tells him she’s fallen in love. Ellie overhears, assuming she’s talking about Chad, and runs crying into the night. Maile, tired of waiting in the lobby, comes upstairs and sees them together and runs off in tears. Just then, the girls rush in saying that Ellie has taken a jeep and driven off. Chud follows her and sees her in the water. 

 

He pulls her out of the water, spanks her, and after that, she cries that nobody loves her. The next day, Abigail makes it clear that she’s in love with Jack, not Chad. Mailie understands that Chad wasn’t cheating on her, and they decide to use his father’s pineapple connections to start their own travel agency. At the end they decide to get married, and this movie ends with the “Hawaiian Wedding Song.”  

“Can’t Help Falling In Love” was written specifically for Elvis’ movie Blue Hawaii. In this movie, Elvis’ character sings it to the grandmother of his girlfriend for her birthday, but that context has long since been forgotten. Because Elvis sang it so many times in concert, it is more fitting to suggest that the song belongs to the fans.

 

It speaks to the way the fans felt about Elvis, and it was his love song to them. Juliet Prowse was slated co-star with Elvis In Blue Hawaii, but her demands were considered extravagant, and she was replaced by Joan Blackman.  

Songs; Blue Hawaii, Almost Always True, Aloha Oe, No More, Can't Help Falling In Love With You, Rock-a-Hula Baby, Moonlight Swim, Ku-u-i-Po, Ito eats, Slicin' Sand, Hawaiian Sunset, Beach Boy Blues, Island Of Love, Hawaiian Wedding Song