Elvis On Tour (1972)
This week, Warner Home Video and Elvis Presley Enterprises announced the Elvis On Tour Blu-ray and DVD release date as August 3. There will also be a special screening of the movie on August 14 in Memphis during Elvis Week.
You read that right, we’re only four months away from the Elvis On Tour release!
Elvis On Tour features Elvis on the road and in rehearsals in the spring of 1972. Sandwiched between 1970’s colossal That’s The Way It Is and 1973’s Aloha From Hawaii, MGM’s Golden-Globe-winning documentary often seems to be overlooked among Elvis events. The second documentary produced about him, Elvis On Tour also represents Elvis’ 33rd and final movie.
Previously available in wide release only on VHS, Elvis On Tour is finally making its debut on Blu-ray and DVD. So, it is a little late to the DVD party, but just in time for the high-definition Blu-ray party!
While there will apparently not be any previously unreleased footage in this release, the press release does mention a number of songs that were featured only in the 1992 home video Elvis: The Lost Performances.
My hope is that the 1972 songs from The Lost Performances will be available as fully restored bonus features, along with the original theatrical version of the film. Blu-ray movies also allow for the possibility of “branching” — where you can choose between variations of a movie.
As we count down the months to the Elvis On Tour release, The Mystery Train will have more articles celebrating this event. Keep checking back, folks.
This is a great time to be an Elvis fan!
The Mystery Train Blog 
I agree, Elvis On Tour certainly is overlooked. It’s hard to understand why, maybe EPE doesn’t think Elvis looks to be in perfect shape, doesn’t project the official image, or something like that. If so, that might be the reason why nearly no footage from the movie was used in the recent Elvis Presley In Concert tour. Sad, indeed.
I also hope we’ll get the bonus songs from The Lost Performances, it’s amazing that one hasn’t been released on DVD either.
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My impression has been that EPE has wanted an Elvis On Tour release for some time, though they don’t own the rights.
It’s Warner and/or Turner (their whole movie catalog relationship is a Rubik’s cube that I’ll never figure out) that has been holding back until this point, for whatever reason. The re-edit of That’s The Way It Is supposedly didn’t sell as well as expected, but I think part of the problem there is that Warner has not updated their Elvis marketing strategy in years. They appear to make a lot of assumptions about Elvis fans that may no longer be true.
I’m not sure what dictates available footage for the In Concert tour. I’ve heard that some of the That’s The Way It Is footage used is of much poorer quality than available on the DVD releases, for instance. Since EPE doesn’t own That’s The Way It Is or Elvis On Tour, they may even have difficulty obtaining that sort of thing – as odd as that may seem to us.
The Lost Performances was one of those special Elvis events for me, one of those times where I just knew I would be listening to this guy forever. I’ll never forget watching that for the first time. What a perfect video.
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