That's Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America 1959, in the 1965 Elvis movie "Harum Scarum." She has died at the age of 75.
"Harum Scarum" was filmed on the set Cecil B. DeMille used for the 1927 movie "The King of Kings" and uses some of the story from the 1921 Rudolph Valentino movie "The Sheik."
"Harum Scarum" was the only Elvis movie I ever saw in the theater. This was 1965, a year after "Hard Day's Night," where money can't buy you love.
We were free, in the modern world, so what the hell was Elvis doing? He was so ridiculous. We went to the movie to laugh at him. We were like George Harrison, turning down the sound and saying rude things. We'd seen an ad in the teen magazines for "Harum Scarum" and had taken to saying "Harum Scarum" just to make each other laugh.
It seemed so funny that we thought it would be fun to watch the movie as a joke. But it was dreadfully boring. Anyway, the ad is still hilarious — the phallic symbols, the ethnic nonsense, the absurd image of 1950s Elvis blithely unaware — he thinks he's "swingin'" — as Elvis in a Sheik costume is about to poke him in the ass with a knife. As for Mary Ann, she's down there somewhere amongst the little people at his feet. If it's supposed to be a harem, they can't give one woman prominence. So stick her down there between 1950s Elvis's legs, and — because you can't have too many Elvises — put another Elvis down there. "It's Elvis" say the letters across the top, bigger than the movie title. And what was the point of misspelling "harem"? It's not as if matching "scarum" was the idea, "scarum" being a misspelling of "scare 'em." And "You won't believe it when you see it!" Why the hell not? What could possibly be hard to believe about a dumb Elvis movie. He's in a costume? There are a lot of "harem" girls for him? After seeing the damned thing, we said: "You won't believe it when you see it? You won't believe how boring it is."
But that was a half century ago, and so long, Mary Ann.
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I'd forgotten how attractive she was. I don't think the new MA's really hold up, though they are more likely to be gymnast/doctor/philanthropists.
I always liked Elvis movies in a camp sort of way, but I'd forgotten that one. Not the best of the genre.
But one could watch McQ and not think much of The Duke.
-XC
I decided to check on the movie, googled it, and found out that "harum-scarum" is actually an adjective for impetuous. First use 1751. So it is not a creation of MGM.
So minarets are phallic symbols? Careful now, you don't the Muslim world to boycott Wisconsin cheese.
Married for 45 years to Gary Collins (until his death). A rare long-time Hollywood occurance.
"Stop running around harum scarum!" is a refrain I heard constantly as a little kid. Maybe it's a Southern thing.
Grandma loved Elvis, so I was dragged unwillingly to all the Elvis movies as a kid.
"I decided to check on the movie, googled it, and found out that "harum-scarum" is actually an adjective for impetuous. First use 1751. So it is not a creation of MGM."
Right. It is an old term, but it's only used in the movie title because there is a harem involved. As for the old term, it's originally not about a harem but a hare. The OED offers a number of spellings, beginning with "harum scarum" and then: " Also 16–18 harum-starum, 17 hare'um scare'um, hairum-scairum, 17–18 harem-scarem."
The etymology is: "A rhyming combination, apparently < hare v.2 + scare v., sometimes taken as = hare 'em, scare 'em."
If you wonder what people will cringe about 50 years from now, my guess is that yesterday's posts may show a glimpse of chagrin to come.
I just heard (on my radio) that today is the 47th anniversary of Otis Redding's death in a plane crash into Lake Monona. That, with your post on Mary Ann Mobley, kind of making me feel a bit old this morning.
It's hard to believe this was only 10 years after Elvis' first typhoon of fame and notoriety, (and the year of my birth).
I also saw this in the theater, along with two or three other Elvis movies in this era. The one I remember liking was GIRLS!GIRLS!GIRLS! The others were just ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.
My brothers and I always noticed a young girl in the theater in the Elvis movies we saw, and she was always crying. She seemed to have, ahem, an unhealthy devotion to Elvis.
The "MGM / Harum Scarum" yellow logo is the thickest phallic symbol on the poster. Notice the placement of the two Elvises on either side: they are leaning back, positioning their asses right on the phallic symbol, perhaps even in a teasing matter ('Western Elvis' is apparently in the act of gyrating against it).
The title could be read as "Harem Scare Them" -- the "Them" being, of course, the two Elvises, scared of the women of the Harem and preferring to rub their asses on the engorged logo-penis. Meanwhile, a "snake-charmer" is positioned to the left, with the snake viewing this scenario.
Thus: Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America 1959, was actually a man who had anal sex with Elvis. I bet that went over the heads of the young girls.
I am Laslo.
It's not like Althouse to go hell-for-leather (shall we say harum-scarum?) after a malapropism without first consulting the good old OED. Must be the wee hour...
I visited the free OED site learn more about that 1751 first use, perhaps the name of the Georgian wag who coined it. No such luck. Some versions of the OED will cite the attribution if known, but not the free online edition. For that one must pay up in sterling.
It is an old term, but it's only used in the movie title because there is a harem involved.
That what we in the Army call a pun.
We had a long drive recently, and after she got tired of my talking, I was, for the first time, allowed to put on the XM radio. First channel I put on was the Elvis channel, which we listened to for several hundred miles.
She was working in the mid -70s in a big hotel in Vegas, and got to work with a lot of stars, esp when they would play there. And got front row seats at a lot of the shows there. Best music show she ever saw live was Elvis. He had one of the best voices of the generation, with that phenomenal range, and could move on stage better than almost any one. He would give 110% for every song, which was obvious to anyone in the front row, with his sweat flying off him. Then, having done work for him, they went back stage after that performance. He gave her a hug and a scarf, and thanked her very, very, much. His smell right there was one of the most masculine things she has ever smelled. Easily the sexiest man she ever worked around/for.
My partner never could understand the allure of the Beatles, or even the Beach Boys, because she completely skipped being interested in boys, and went straight for men, and has been with guys maybe 6-7 years older than she to this day. And by the time she saw and met Elvis, he was very much a man. But in those early movies, he still had some of the boy in him. Those, mostly horrible, movies of his were merely ways to exploit his, initially primarily female, fan base.
I hope everyone's breakfast is settled because this will creep you out.
After I wrote "I bet that went over the heads of the young girls" I re-read Althouse's post and realized that I could be wrong. Horror.
Althouse wrote:
"You won't believe how boring it is."
If these young girls meant "boring" in the sense of "the act or process of making or enlarging a hole" then they totally understood the anal sex aspect of the Elvis movie. I stand corrected.
I am Laslo.
Ah the Mysterious East. So much we did not know then. And now.
(Mobley was an old time southern girl, but an ambitious one. She and Elvis became friends--both Mississippians, both from unstable families. (Mobley never knew her father and was not raised by her mother either.) They were of the old white Mississippi world, but not attached to the segregationist past. But neither was a militant. Indeed they were both notably silent on both sides of the race issues that help define their era.)
Mobley had a long and reasonably successful career in Hollywood. Her daughter with Gary Collins is a Stanford grad and a senior executive at one of the studios. She was a committed Christian and involved in charity work in Africa, like many southern Christians have been over time. She suffered from Chrone's Disease and a long breast cancer which finally killed her. Husband Gary was an active alcoholic.
A Mississippi relic of another era who found a way through times of change, a beautiful woman who used her beauty to good effect in her life. RIP Mary Ann.
Geez, Quaestor, that IS creepy. But I doubt it was thought so by almost anyone back then. We have gained so much and lost so much.
'"It's Elvis" say the letters across the top, bigger than the movie title.'
Hell yes, Elvis was in bigger letters. I enjoyed some of Elvis' work back then. But name me a movie that was anything more than a shell of a story to bridge between musical numbers for the big E. (I do recall one - Cato's Land or some such - that was not. It was also roundly panned by disappointed Elvis fans.
Like Liberace, Elvis cried all the way to the bank.
"[T]he one record in the motion picture industry that will never be broken is the King's string of 31 money-making films, almost all of them horrendous."Joe Queenan
Alhouse wrote: This was 1965, a year after "Hard Day's Night," where money can't buy you love.
I connect that date back to an unanswered question of mine here earlier: How did the term "Magic Carpet Ride" enter the popular vernacular?
Could it have all been due to Barbara Eden and "I Dream Of Jeannie"?
Bathe her! And bring her to me.
Actually, the Beatles clip wasn't any less boring than the Elvis clip. The music was better, of course.
Althouse wrote: He was so ridiculous. We went to the movie to laugh at him.
I laughed at him too and I am considerably younger than you. But then, later on, I had second thoughts: link.
Wedding plans Candide, a perfectly matched couple.
Variously in 2/4, 3/4 and 7/4, for those keeping time.
In today's terms, these two Mississippians were simply exercising their white privilege, or something like that.
And harems? Really? Heteronormative, as well as extreme oppression of womyn.
I was 12 at the time and I knew what i liked. It wasn't Elvis, it was Mary Ann. Believe that.
Man you know what a rip-off The Monkees were after watching that Money Can't Buy Me Love vid.
Elvis movies are just so damn sad. I often wonder about famous pop artists from the 50’s and 60’s who originated out of backwater USA. Elvis from Tupelo, Buddy Holly from Lubbock, Dylan from Hibbing. Maybe there’s something about the childhood experience of growing up isolated in small town low-brow/no-brow culture. They avoid being saturated in sophisticated metropolitan culture and start with something organic and unique.
Elvis started out really cool. But pop culture was never considered enduring. Make the quick money, knock off a few movies and go from there. Nobody realized that boomers would enshrine everything. Elvis makes more money today than he ever did.
Whatever Elvis movies lacked in intelligence or dramatic tension or whatever was more than made up for in his choice of pretty girls. With the exception of Ann Margaret none of them became major stars, but they were terrific to look at. If you saw his movies at a certain age, you came away thinking that you had gotten your money 's worth.
"Elvis started out really cool."
That's understating the matter! He electrified (and scandalized) the world!
Bob Dylan and Keith Richards have both stated they wanted to be Elvis! I'm sure they weren't the only ones (among those who later went on to pop music stardom).
King Creole is an interesting movie in its own right, made more interesting by featuring Elvis and a pre-Morticia-Addams Carolyn Jones. That one, at least, is worth watching. Though I can always spare a moment for Angela Lansbury's atrocious Southern accent in Blue Hawaii.
JAILHOUSE ROCK is also good, and Elvis plays a character who is not always nice or likeable. ROUSTABOUT is not on that level, or that of KING CREOLE, but it had something more of a real story with conflict between characters than later became typical of Elvis movies; it also had Barbara Stanwyck in it.
I would have watched Procol Harum Scarum.
Elvis is forever.
The four biggest male singers of the 20th century were Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. In terms of cultural impact, Elvis had the greatest effect. Bing can take comfort in having the best selling song of all time, White Christmas, and of having had the greatest critical success as an actor. Frank remains the greatest singer of standards who ever lived. Jolson was the big singer of his era, and it is doubtful that anyone will ever sing a better blackface version of Mamie than he did.
With the exception of Ann Margaret none of them became major stars
That Barbara Eden gal (Flaming Star, 1960) did okay.
King Creole benefits from having an Oscar-winning director on board (Michael Curtiz)
Gosh, I forgot about Gary Collins and Mary Ann Mobley. They seemed to host an awful of of shows when I was a kid in the 70s.
"A Hard Day's Night" aged very well. It is charming. "Help" did not. It is incredibly stupid.
I did not watch the Clint Eastwood "Man With No Name" trilogy until about ten years ago. I was stunned that it was from 1964-1966 because Clint's outfits and attitude outcool the early Beatles by a long shot. The Beatles didn't get there until 1969 or so and most of the music industry followed in the 1970s.
On an Elvis-specific note, his 1968 special is now considered a classic, but back then he apparently was considered embarrassing and was quite nervous about doing the show in the British Invasion era. HOWEVER... If you watch it now, he seems timeless with the star power and black leather, while the hipster 1960s chicklets in their beehives seem archaic, almost like ghosts.
A fellow Biloxian. RIP.
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