Elvis Stay Away Joe Views

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Stay Away, Joe is a 1968 comedy-drama western film with musical interludes set in modern times and starring Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith and Joan Blondell. The movie was based on the 1953 novel by Dan Cushman published by Viking, a satirical farce which was a best-selling Book-of-the-Month Club selection. The movie was #65 on the Variety list of the top-grossing movies of 1968.

Joe is able to borrow a bull, Dominick, but the bull is lackadaisical and shows no interest in the heifers. Former leading lady Joan Blondell appears as shot gun-toting tavern owner Glenda Callahan, whose daughter, Mamie Callahan, played by Quentin Dean, can't seem to stay away from the girl-chasing Joe. Joe also trades in his horse at a used car dealership from Dick Wilson, who played Mr. Whipple in the Charmin commercials, for a red convertible automobile from which he sells the parts off to obtain cash from a salvage yard. After almost all of the usable car parts are sold, he rides around in a beat-up motorcycle. A sense of futility and comic absurdity pervades the movie.

Although released before Speedway, this film and its soundtrack were made after, the first of Presley's last five films in the 1960s where musical numbers were kept to a minimum.[2] The recording session took place at RCA Studio B in in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 1, 1967, Presley making his record producer Felton Jarvis promise never to release the song written for Elvis to sing to a bull in the movie, Dominick. However, the song is actually sung to two women in the movie, and the bull is no where to be seen in the scene, making a rather strange scene.[3] The other two songs, Stay Away, Joe and All I Needed Was the Rain, wouldn't even be 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.

Elvis Presley played a Native American for the second time in his career in the musical comedy Stay Away, Joe, based on a best-selling book by Dan Cushman. This time, however, instead of being a relevant commentary on prejudice -- as was the superior Flaming Star -- the film stereotypes American Indians as shiftless and irresponsible.