The Netflix documentary Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley looks back nearly 60 years to a crucial pivot point in Elvis’s career. Could he rediscover his original rizz, that performative spark that was the true source of the rock ‘n’ roll trailblazer’s energy? Or would he fade further into celebrity homogeneity? Return, directed by Jason Hehir (The Last Dance), isn’t the first documentary or dramatic film to ask these questions. But through interviews – including appearances from Priscilla Presley, Baz Luhrmann, Bruce Springsteen, Conan O’Brien, and the late Robbie Robertson – and in tracing his biography up to and including his participation in the influential television special that became known as ‘68 Comeback, Return of the King gains real insight into Elvis Presley’s love of music, as well as his personal vulnerabilities.
The Gist: In June 1968, when rehearsals began for a television special where he would sing and perform, it had actually been years since Elvis Presley had done either of those things. The wild “Elvis the Pelvis” television appearances from ten years before, the resonance of early radio hits like “Heartbreak Hotel” and “That’s All Right” and “Blue Suede Shoes” – all of that had been replaced by the safety of bland B-movie Elvis. With the guidance of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, Presley made a whole bunch of money in Hollywood. But the edges – those intangibles that made his music vital, that made him dangerous to the establishment – those had been sanded all the way down.
By ‘68, the late Robbie Robertson says in Return of the King, Elvis “was walking a fine line between ‘I’m the real thing’ or ‘I’ve lost it.’” The TV special offered an opportunity to reframe his image back to that of a singer first, as a rock star and a sex symbol, and by the time he got onstage in his now legendary black leather suit, surrounded by young and curious fans, Elvis was ready to remind everyone why he mattered in the first place. But it was a huge risk. Did the dude still even have the juice? And for that matter, would the controlling nature of his manager scuttle the whole thing before the electric sight of a loose and happy Elvis playing covers and old faves with a crack backing band even had a chance to make the airwaves?
Return of the King gets some great quotes from Priscilla Presley about how, at the special, she was blown away to see her husband perform live for the first time. (“Woah,” she laughs. “This is what it’s all about?”) It gains perspective on Elvis as a musician from Robertson, Springsteen, O’Brien, and Billy Corgan. And it finds a way into his soul through the memories of Priscilla – they originally bonded because she was the only one who would really listen to him – and Luhrmann’s sense of the conflict that always raged within him. That exciting unpredictability of authenticity, as opposed to the safe route, where he existed simply as a commodity. O’Brien calls the ‘68 Comeback special Elvis Presley’s third act as a celebrity figure, because by reinvigorating his creative life, it made him real again. Real to the viewing audience – it’s been decades, and we’re still talking and making documentaries about this thing – but even more importantly, real to Elvis himself.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The 2023 documentary Reinventing Elvis: The ‘68 Comeback explores a lot of the same territory as Return of the King, and in addition features extensive new interviews with Steve Binder, who produced the Presley TV special. (It’s available to stream on Paramount+.) And in Return, the footage of their meeting and early courtship that accompanies the doc’s new interviews with Priscilla Presley also highlights the amount of precise detail present in Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s 2023 biopic.
Performance Worth Watching: Singer and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love has direct ‘68 Comeback insight, because she was booked on the special as one of Elvis’s backup singers. But Love is also thoughtful about Presley’s early days, when the Southern boy was first making a ruckus. “Nobody white was singing like that, or even acting like that onstage,” Love says in Return. “We thought it was funny, because we would say things like ‘Oh, he’s just trying to be Black.’ But he really wasn’t, that was just who he was. That was the controversy that everybody was having at that time.”
Memorable Dialogue: Bruce Springsteen describes Elvis Presley’s headspace as The King prepared to perform for the first time in over five years. “You are going onto a stage that you’re unfamiliar with. You are being produced and directed by people you don’t really know. At some point, you just reach the ‘fuck it’ point. Like, I gotta go out there, and no matter what happens, ‘fuck it.’ He reached the ‘fuck it’ point, you know? That’s what’s goin’ through his head. And he was just going. He was going where his destiny was leading him.”
Sex and Skin: Let’s hear about ‘68 Comeback-era Elvis from an audience member. “Oh my goodness,” Sandi Tompkins says in an interview for Return. “He was gorgeous. His hair was so shiny, and the lights hit it. He was, like, glowing. I don’t know what God looks like, but you would say this guy was godlike.”
Our Take: After years of playing it safe in Hollywood, of appearing in loads of cheapie films where he hated the scripts and had to sing badly-arranged songs to animals, Elvis Presley was dangling, lost on the fraying end of his creative rope. It wasn’t even a decade since he’d become a star as one of the new faces of rock ‘n’ roll. But in today’s terms, by 1968, he was close to washed, and it was time to fuck around and find out. One of the coolest parts of Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley is the audio it includes of impromptu jam sessions led by Elvis during down moments at the shoot for the ‘68 Comeback special. It’s the sound of a guy given space to actually enjoy singing, collaborating, and playing the guitar, and it’s that energy – vital, unbound, beyond the meddling of Colonel Tom Parker – that fuels the eventual performances on TV, which Return is smart to also feature in extended looks.
In a lot of ways, Elvis Presley defined the mechanics of pop celebrity. When he was drafted in 1958, songs recorded before he went in kept his voice on the radio. (This is exactly what BTS did before the Korean boy band sensation paused to perform their own compulsory military service.) But what Return of the King does a really nice job of is establishing how Elvis’s celebrity became the biggest liability to who he wished to be personally. It presents the ‘68 Comeback special accurately as the moment he was able to regain control of his own mystique.
Our Call: Stream It. Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley isn’t covering a lot of new ground, but it’s a nicely-packaged and presented look at the creative life of a legacy artist whose biggest impediment was the nature of his own celebrity.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
