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Tribune News Service

The song’s opening line tells the story of Las Vegas – then and today.
“Bright light city, gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire.”
“It showed you there was more to Las Vegas than mobsters and the Rat Pack. That message had value,” Las Vegas historian Michael Greene says of the title song from the 1964 film Viva Las Vegas.
Viva Las Vegas, the movie and song, helped crystallise Vegas’ identity as a worldwide tourism destination. The film, released in May 1964, co-starred Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret, and was directed by the legendary George Sidney.


The film was boosted by its bouncy soundtrack and Technicolor, which showed off the stars’ red and yellow outfits and the city’s flashing neon.
Viva Las Vegas’ storyline: racing car driver Lucky Jackson (Presley) hits Vegas to compete in the Las Vegas Grand Prix (the forerunner of today’s F1 race, without the widespread repaving).

Lucky’s engine coughs out, and he loses his money when shoved into the Flamingo hotel-casino pool by lifeguard – and part-time singer/dancer – Rusty Martin (Ann-Margret).
The early king and queen of Las Vegas would hit it off royally. They sing. They dance. They flirt. They end up getting married at the famous Little Church of the West.
The pairing of Presley and Ann-Margret was paramount to the film’s appeal. Both would go on to perform as headliners in Las Vegas.

Their chemistry was evident as Elvis, wearing a sharp grey suit, trails Ann-Margret (in a canary-yellow swimsuit) around the pool deck.
Self-confident in his portrayal as Lucky, Elvis strums an acoustic and croons, “The Lady Loves Me”, which starts as a solo and grows into a teasing duet.
Presley and Ann-Margret also tore it up in the explosive “C’mon Everybody”.
They kept in contact. They were dating for, I guess, about a year after the filming
Jerry Schilling, friend of Presley
In 2021 Ann-Margret talked of her time with Presley during the filming.
“He was a great man. This is going to sound weird, but I’d never seen him perform before I did the movie,” she said. “I know, it’s hard to believe.
“And we just found out that we were very much alike. Growing up and being very shy, and then you become this other person when you are performing. I loved my parents so much, and he loved his mother so much.”
Ann-Margret had become a sensation a year earlier in the film adaptation of Bye Bye Birdie, also directed by Sidney. She was the only entertainer to ever share top billing with Elvis.
As they rehearsed, Ann-Margret recalled, “We looked at each other and said, ‘We’re moving the same!’ The music brought that out in us. We just chuckled at that.”

She also claimed she had seen Viva Las Vegas once, end-to-end, just after the final cut.
“I see my movies only one time, and it’s usually in a screening room,” Ann-Margret said “The knuckles are white. It’s just very uncomfortable, I don’t know who that person is. I still don’t. I just did the best that I could.”
Jerry Schilling, whose friendship with Elvis dated to the mid-1950s in Memphis, Tennessee, said Elvis and Ann-Margret were close long after Viva Las Vegas wrapped.
“They kept in contact. They were dating for, I guess, about a year after the filming,” said Schilling, who lived with the King at his estate in Bel Air, California, at that time. “I mean, they were as close as you could get, when you’re living undercover (laughs).”
Ann-Margret is famous for her love of motorcycles. She stood on a bike alongside Elvis during Viva Las Vegas’ filming. She later rumbled to the stage on a Triumph during her days as a Strip headliner. So Elvis parked a bike for his co-star and companion in his garage, with “AMO” painted on the fuel tank. That stood for the initials in her birth name, Ann Margret Olsson.

Co-written by the late songwriting team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Viva Las Vegas peaked at No 29 on the Billboard singles charts. The film’s title tune has been covered by a multitude of artists. The Killers, Wayne Newton, Billy Idol, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, U2, and ZZ Top have performed memorable versions in Las Vegas.
Billy Joel sang a segment of it in his most recent Las Vegas show in 2022, and before in 2016. Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs also sang it at the Super Bowl trophy ceremony.
In 2002, the city of Las Vegas reportedly asked Elvis Presley Enterprises for permission to use Viva Las Vegas as the city’s official song. Those talks stalled over a disagreement over the fee. But the song was played unofficially during Oscar Goodman’s three terms as mayor as his “walk-in” music for all public events.

“I had the showgirls, the martini and Viva Las Vegas playing in the background,” Goodman says. “As mayor of Las Vegas, what could be better?”
One who was not known to perform the song live was the King himself. It was not on his set list at the International or Las Vegas Hilton, or any of his road dates.
Schilling cannot recall Elvis ever performing the song for an audience.
“That is a great question, but I never heard him sing Viva Las Vegas in Las Vegas,” Schilling says. “I was there for all the shows, so … It would seem like a no-brainer, but maybe he thought it would be too typical. He probably wanted to leave it to others to keep it alive.”


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American cinema

Viva Las Vegas at 60: how Sin City is still dancing to Elvis Presley’s tune

Ann-Margret and Presley pose for a promotional photo for Viva Las Vegas in 1964.  Photo: Getty Images/TNS

Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret in a still from Viva Las Vegas. The 1964 film and its title track remain synonymous with Sin City 60 years on. Curiously, the King was not known to have performed the song live during any of his Las Vegas residencies. Photo: Getty Images

Presley (front) and Ann-Margret in a still from Viva Las Vegas. Photo: Getty Images

Ann-Margret and Presley pose for a promotional photo for Viva Las Vegas in 1964. Photo: Getty Images/TNS

Presley and Ann-Margret in a still from Viva Las Vegas. Photo: Getty Images

Ann-Margret on a motorcycle circa 1965. Photo: Getty Images

Downtown Las Vegas in the 1960s. Although Viva Las Vegas is synonymous with the city, Presley was not known to perform the song live there, or anywhere else. Photo: Getty Images

How Hollywood film is preserved so classics like Star Wars and Christopher Nolan movies don’t become vinegar

Charlie Chaplin in a scene from The Gold Rush (1925). Preserving the film that classic movies were captured on is key to the survival of Hollywood’s extensive back catalogue into the future. Photo: AFP

Film in the process of being digitised at Pro-Tek Vaults, a film-preservation specialist near Los Angeles. Preserving acetate film, used to shoot Hollywood productions from the 1950s onwards, is key to ensuring the survival of its extensive back catalogue. Photo: AFP

Charlie Chaplin in a scene from The Gold Rush (1925). Movies during this era were captured on nitrate film, which was highly flammable. Photo: AFP

A film specialist checks film and writes recommendations on how to keep it in a good condition, at Pro-Tek Vaults. Photo: AFP

Film inside a canister at Pro-Tek Vaults. Photo: AFP

Axl Rose (left) and Slash of Guns N´ Roses perform in Mexico City in 2020. Some of Pro-Tek Vaults’ work has included unearthing never-before-seen footage of the band. Photo: AFP

Japanese movies find fans in France beyond the art-house crowd as Paris embraces ‘Tora-san’ in Otoko wa Tsurai yo

Kiyoshi Atsumi as Tora-san in a still from an Otoko wa Tsurai yo movie. Photo: Shochiku Co.

Kiyoshi Atsumi as Tora-san in a still from an Otoko wa Tsurai yo movie. The warm reception the Japanese film series received upon its recent showing in Paris highlights the growing popularity of Japanese cinema in France. Photo: Shochiku Co.

A huge “Tora-san” poster at Paris’ Maison de la culture du Japon. Photo: Maison de la Culture du Japon a Paris / Shochiku Co.

Atsumi as Tora-san in a still from an Otoko wa Tsurai yo movie. Photo: Shochiku Co.

Tora-san is invariably left heartbroken at the end of each Otoko wa Tsurai yo film. Photo: Shochiku Co.

Changing culture in Hong Kong around 1997 handover captured in Fruit Chan’s films The Longest Summer and Little Cheung

Mak Wai-fan (top) as Ah Fan and Yiu Yuet-ming as as Little Cheung in a still from Fruit Chan’s Little Cheung.

A still from Little Cheung. Fruit Chan Gor’s Made in Hong Kong, The Longest Summer and Little Cheung present a complete picture of Hong Kong working-class life at the time of the territory’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Tony Ho (left) as Ga-yin and Sam Lee (right) as Ga-suen in a still from The Longest Summer.

Jo Kuk as Jane in a still from The Longest Summer.

Fruit Chan, director of The Longest Summer and Little Cheung, pictured in 1999. Photo: SCMP

Yiu Yuet-ming (left) as Little Cheung and Mak Wai-fan as Ah Fan in a still from Little Cheung.

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In the 1964 film Viva Las Vegas, Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret cemented Vegas’ image by singing, dancing and flirting their way around its hotels and casinos
Elvis, a ‘great man’ according to Ann-Margret, sang the title song, which remains synonymous with Las Vegas 60 years on. But he wasn’t known to perform it there


Viva Las Vegas, the 1964 musical with Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret, crystallised Vegas’ image in the popular imagination. 60 years on, the title track, by Elvis, is still synonymous with Sin City.


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