Opening today: “Tickle Me”

June 3, 1965 - Opening today is “Tickle Me,” a musical comedy western film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Elvis Presley as a champion rodeo bull rider and bronco buster. For the first time in a Presley film, the soundtrack has no new material, utilizing album cuts dating back as early as 1960.

Julie Adams and Jocelyn Lane co-star with Presley. The screenplay was written by Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds, who previously wrote Three Stooges film shorts and theatrical films as well as scripts for The Bowery Boys. They bring to the film a sizable quota of slapstick, sight gags, and general silliness not found in any previous Presley vehicle.

In the story, a singing rodeo rider (Presley) gets hired at an expensive, all-female dude ranch/beauty spa and falls for a pretty fitness trainer (Lane) who’s under constant threat from a gang who wants her late grandfather’s cache of gold that is hidden in a ghost town.

The film was shot over 23 days in October and November of last year, plus two days of second-unit photography.

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