On Thursday, August 11, 2011 we watched the DVD of the film Change of Habit. It is a 1969 movie starring Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore. My wife had purchased the DVD several months earlier. We’d been fans of Elvis’ music for a while and last year we had seen his concert film Elvis on Tour at the AMC theatres in Glendora (see earlier review). I hadn’t yet seen a film in which Elvis acted in a role. He made over thirty films in the 1950s and 1960s. Change of Habit seemed like a good choice. Elvis plays a doctor and Mary Tyler Moore plays a nun who helps him out. It was one of Elvis’ later movies. It’s around an hour and a half long and is rated G.
The movie is about three nuns, Sister Michelle (played by Mary Tyler Moore), Sister Irene, and Sister Barbara who shed their habits and disguise themselves as regular people. They go to the rundown neighborhood of Washington Street in NYC to help out Dr. Carpenter (played by Elvis) at his free clinic. Dr. Carpenter also happens to play rock and roll music. The nuns have a tough time settling in. At one point Dr. Carpenter and some of his friends help them paint their apartment. It only takes them until dinnertime to get it done. Sister Michelle and Dr. Carpenter help a little girl, Amanda, with autism. At one point Dr. Carpenter administers Rage Reduction Therapy. I’ve never heard of that therapy for autism. By the end, Sister Michelle looks at Dr. Carpenter and then at a crucifix as if struggling to make a choice. I bet many people struggle with a similar choice.
The film appears to take place in the late 1960s when it was made. At the beginning, the nuns cross a New York street carrying hard-sided suitcases without wheels. All the cars look classic. When Dr. Carpenter buys Sister Michelle and Amanda ice cream, he only has to pay thirty cents for three cones. I later read that it was filmed in L.A. but I thought the setting looked fairly realistic with the tenement buildings.
All the actors do a great job. Mary Tyler Moore does seem as young as her character. I later read that the film was planned as a Mary Tyler Moore vehicle until Elvis signed on. The cast also includes Ed Asner as a police officer. He would later costar in Mary Tyler Moore’s 1970s TV show. I thought that Elvis did a great job acting. He still had his accent and still sang. But he conveyed the right amount of emotions for the scenes and throughout the film I saw him as Dr. Carpenter rather than Elvis.
Elvis still sings in the film. When we first received the DVD, I thought he played a strictly non-singing role. But the opening credits already feature him singing the title song, “Change of Habit,” a mid-tempo, upbeat song. The next song soon follows and is sung by Elvis’ character, Dr. Carpenter as an informal performance. “Rubbernecking” is a more rocking song with the catchy starting lyric, “Stop, look, and listen, baby…” The next song, “Have a Happy”, is a musical interlude that Dr. Carpenter sings as he and Sister Michelle and Amanda ride the carousel in the park. The song has lyrics such as “Happy warm smiling face” or “Happy warm sunshine place.” It’s a slower song, but very upbeat. Dr. Carpenter sings the last song during a mass. “Let Us Pray” is an upbeat song, fast but not too rocking for church. I bet Elvis liked that song the best of the four because he always liked singing gospel songs.
The DVD included a couple of special features. One was a theatrical trailer that seemed to give away the plot of the entire film. There were some notes about the film saying that it did moderately at the box office. It was Elvis’ first film where he played a professional and the last theatrical role he played. The cast notes described how he revived his recording and concert career not long after Change of Habit came out. He had his comeback special and later went on tour starting with a month-long engagement at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. We saw an old photo of the International Hotel at Casa Di Amore in Las Vegas in April 2011. (See earlier review) The marquee in the photo said, “International Hotel Presents Elvis”. The only films he made after Change of Habit were the concert films, Elvis the Way It is and Elvis on Tour.
We enjoyed Change of Habit. It was a good movie in its own right and featuring Elvis just made it better. We got to see a side of Elvis that we hadn’t seen much of before, his acting. Now we want to “Stop, look, and listen” to more of his films.
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