''Stay Away, Joe'' is a 1968 American

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

film with musical interludes, set in modern times and starring

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...

, Burgess Meredith,

Joan Blondell Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years. Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on a film career, estab ...

, Katy Jurado and Thomas Gomez. Directed by Peter Tewksbury, the film is based on the 1953 satirical farce novel of the same name by Dan Cushman. The film reached number 65 on the '' Variety'' weekly national box office chart in 1968.

Plot

Native American rodeo rider Joe Lightcloud is a

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

whose family still lives on the reservation. He returns to the reservation in a white Cadillac convertible that he uses to drive cattle. Joe persuades his congressman to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so that he and his father can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend Bronc Hoverty accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy home improvements for his stepmother Annie Lightcloud. Joe is able to borrow a bull named Dominick, but the bull is old and shows no interest in the heifers. Mamie Callahan, the daughter of shotgun-toting tavern owner Glenda Callahan, can't seem to stay away from the girl-chasing Joe. Joe trades in his horse at a used car dealership for a red convertible automobile from which he sells off the parts to obtain cash from a salvage yard. After almost all of the usable car parts are sold, Joe rides around on a beat-up motorcycle. Joe's younger sister Mary, a bank teller in town, has a chance to marry into the reasonably wealthy Hawkins family. When the prospective mother-in-law visits the Lightcloud's rundown shack, things go well until Glenda Callahan chases Joe through the house firing her shotgun. Mrs. Hawkins promptly faints. The couple eventually reconciles. To raise money, Joe organizes a contest in which riders have to ride Dominick the bull. Joe has to ride Dominick and hang on in order to win the prize money, which he does. At his father's house, Joe and his friends are involved in a large fight that destroys the house that they have been building.

Cast

as Joe Lightcloud * Burgess Meredith as Charlie Lightcloud *

as Glenda Callahan * Katy Jurado as Annie Lightcloud * Thomas Gomez as Grandpa * Henry Jones as Hy Slager * L.Q. Jones as Bronc Hoverty * Quentin Dean as Mamie Callahan * Douglas Henderson as Congressman Morrissey * Dick Wilson as Car Salesman * Sonny West as Jackson He-Crow * Joe Esposito (uncredited) * Charlie Hodge (uncredited) * Susan Trustman as Mary Lightcloud * Angus Duncan as Lorne Hawkins * Anne Seymour as Lorne's Mother

Production

Burt Kennedy Burton Raphael Kennedy (September 3, 1922 – February 15, 2001) was an American screenwriter and film director, director known mainly for directing Westerns. Budd Boetticher called him "the best Western writer ever." Biography Kennedy was b ...

was originally announced as director. Presley was paid $850,000 plus 40% of the profits.Michael A. Hoey, ''Elvis' Favorite Director: The Amazing 52-Film Career of Norman Taurog'', Bear Manor Media 2013 The screenplay was adapted from the failed Broadway musical '' Whoop-Up'' and retained many of the same plot devices and characters, including Joe's grandfather who refuses to live in a house, preferring his ancestral teepee.

Soundtrack

For the first time since '' Wild in the Country'', neither an

LP record The LP (from long playing or long play) is an Analog recording, analog sound storage medium, specifically a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of revolutions per minute, rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use ...

nor an extended-play single was planned for a Presley film

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

. Three songs were written for the film by the team of Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman, who had already contributed close to 50 songs for various Presley movies in the decade. Although released before ''

Speedway Speedway may refer to: Racing Race tracks *Daytona International Speedway, a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida. *Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta. *Indianapolis Motor Spe ...

'', this film and its soundtrack were made after the first of Presley's last five films in the 1960s in which musical numbers were kept to a minimum.Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 229, 239. The recording session took place at RCA Studio B in

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

on October 1, 1967. At the end of the session, Presley made his

record producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

Felton Jarvis promise to never release "Dominick," the song written for him to sing to the bull. However, the song is actually sung to two women in the movie without the bull present. "Dominick" would eventually make its first official CD appearance on the ''Kissin Cousins''/''Clambake''/''Stay Away, Joe'' soundtrack compilation in 1994 (long after the deaths of Presley and Jarvis); it had previously been released, unauthorized, as "Dominick the Impotent Bull" on the 1982 bootleg compilation '' Elvis' Greatest Shit''. The other two songs, " Stay Away, Joe" and "All I Needed Was the Rain," were not even featured on a promotional single for the film premiere, but instead respectively appeared on the budget albums '' Let's Be Friends'' in 1970 and '' Elvis Sings Flaming Star'' in 1969. Two additional songs related to the film were recorded at sessions on January 10 and 11, 1968 at the same studio. "Goin' Home" by Joy Byers would not be used, surfacing on the soundtrack to the next Presley film, ''

'', while a different song entitled " Stay Away," rewritten from the tune of " Greensleeves" by Sid Tepper and

Roy C. Bennett Roy C. Bennett (August 12, 1918 – July 2, 2015) was an American songwriter known for the songs he wrote with Sid Tepper, which spawned several hits for Elvis Presley. Between 1945 and 1970, Tepper and Bennett published over 300 songs. Biograp ...

, would appear as the B-side to the #28

hit single A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single, or simply hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record'' ...

" U.S. Male." Released as catalog item 47-9465b on February 28, 1968, the B-side "Stay Away" would peak at #68 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 independently of "U.S. Male." The producer in charge of the recordings for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

was Jeff Alexander.

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

The Jordanaires The Jordanaires were an American vocal quartet that formed as a gospel group in 1948. Over the years, they recorded both sacred and secular music for recording companies such as Capitol Records, RCA Victor, Columbia Records, Decca Records, Vo ...

– backing vocals * Pete Drake – pedal steel guitar *

Scotty Moore Winfield Scott Moore III (December 27, 1931 – June 28, 2016) was an American guitarist who formed The Blue Moon Boys in 1954, Elvis Presley's backing band. He was studio and touring guitarist for Presley between 1954 and 1968. Rock critic ...

, Chip Young –

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

* Charlie Hodge –

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

Charlie McCoy Charlie McCoy (born Charles Ray McCoy, March 28, 1941) is an American harmonica virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist in country music. He is best known for his harmonica solos on iconic recordings such as " Candy Man" ( Roy Orbison), "He Stoppe ...

– organ,

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

* Hoyt Hawkins – organ *

Floyd Cramer Floyd Cramer (October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997) was an American pianist who became famous for his use of melodic "whole-step" attacks. He was inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His signatur ...

–

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

* Bob Moore –

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

* D.J. Fontana, Buddy Harman –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

Film music track listing

# " Stay Away" ( Sid Tepper and

) (melody taken from " Greensleeves)"- heard over opening credits # " Stay Away, Joe" ( Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman) # "All I Needed Was the Rain" (Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman) # "Dominick" (Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman)

Reception

Kevin Thomas of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' wrote that the film "... could scarcely seem more embarrassingly tasteless or ill-timed than right now. In an unintentionally patronizing way it projects an image of the Indian as happy-go-lucky, immoral and irresponsible just when the public is becoming aware of how truly tragic his plight is. No amount of good-naturedness—and 'Stay Away, Joe!' undeniably has plenty of that—can compensate for humor based on stereotypes so offensive to minority-group sensitivities." However, Thomas suggested that if it had been made in a different time, "... it would seem a pretty good picture. It has plenty of bounce, a strong cast ... some spunky songs and good color photography of natural locales." A review in '' Variety'' reported "generally flat comedy" with "many forced

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...

situations", and echoed Thomas's review by stating that the story was "... out of touch with latterday appreciation of some basic dignity in all human beings ... At best, film is a dim artistic accomplishment; at worst, it caters to outdated prejudice. Custer himself might be embarrassed — for the Indians." ''

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' reported: "Meandering Elvis Presley comedy, rather short on invention except for an amiably hectic finale ... The musical offerings are if anything even less memorable than usual."

References

External links

* * *
Elvis – The Hollywood Collection (Kissin' Cousins/Girl Happy/Tickle Me/Stay Away, Joe/Live a Little, Love a Little/Charro!)
Review by Stuart Galbraith IV a
DVD Talk
September 11, 2007. {{Peter Tewksbury 1968 films 1968 musical films American Western (genre) comedy films Films directed by Peter Tewksbury Films based on Western (genre) novels Films based on American novels Films scored by Jack Marshall Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Contemporary Western films 1960s Western (genre) comedy films 1968 comedy films Films about Native Americans 1960s English-language films 1960s American films English-language Western (genre) comedy films English-language musical films