Love Me Tender

To hell with exploitative kitsch-mongers and the mean folk who like to point out that he died on the toilet: We still have a soft spot for the King. We remember that he not only had a truly dreamy voice and an electrifying stage presence—he was also a real actor. At least he wanted to be. The man dreamed of being the next Marlon Brando, and longed for a serious script that would show off more than his sideburns. Instead, Elvis got stuck with the likes of Love Me Tender, a 1956 Western that finds him shaking his booty on the wild frontier. His first Hollywood movie, it set the standard for a string of goofy second-rate films to come, which have become classics—OK, perhaps kitsch classics—in their own right.