When I watched the full trailer that NEON dropped back on January 13 for Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, I realized a couple of things.

One is that I’ve been writing about this darned lost footage for 35 years. This brief newsletter article about Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and Elvis On Tour outtakes was actually one of the first things I ever wrote about Elvis.

You see, I had read about the possibility of such footage existing in one of my brother’s old Elvis magazines from 1987. Naturally, I wrote to Graceland about it. Because that’s what you do.

And Graceland was nice enough in 1991 to provide the few available details, which I incorporated into my article the following year.

The second realization is that I’ve been carrying around almost as many years’ worth of baggage over this lost footage.

Oh, the mismanagement! Oh, the falsehoods! Oh, the missed opportunities!

As I watched the brilliant preview trailer for EPiC, I finally accepted that it’s time to let all of that go. I don’t want to weigh EPiC down with my lost footage baggage.

Writing is a catharsis for me, so I’m going to air out this baggage one last time, and then it’s gone forever. And if you see me mention it again, friends, I want you to call me out on it.

1992

Event: Elvis: The Lost Performances arrives on VHS and Laserdisc. This compilation of outtakes from Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and Elvis On Tour was just about perfect for its time. It primarily focused on the songs that mattered to Elvis, not necessarily his biggest hits. Songs were presented in full. With no narration in between, the music was allowed to speak for itself.

Associated Baggage: The release of Turner Home Entertainment’s Elvis: The Lost Performances was initially delayed by a year or more due to the 1990 home media release of Buena Vista’s Elvis: The Great Performances. Though they played nice in terms of release dates, I guess no one noticed that a mere four letters distinguish one title from the other. Among casual fans and, most assuredly, the general public, this was potential confusion. The Lost Performances cover art also used a reverse image of the same underlying Elvis: That’s The Way It Is pose as the 1988 VHS release of that film. More potential confusion. To top it off, one month before Elvis: The Lost Performances hits shelves, CBS airs, get this, a television version of Elvis: The Great Performances. I guess that whole playing nice in the marketplace thing didn’t work both ways.

1997

Event: Among other Elvis titles, Turner/MGM re-releases Elvis: That’s The Way It Is, Elvis On Tour, and Elvis: The Lost Performances on home video.

Associated Baggage: All of the “new” VHS videos are in pan & scan to fit square televisions of the day, though many consumers, including this particular Elvis fan, were educated enough by this time to know that widescreen/letterboxed was a superior format for such movies in order not to lose large portions of the image. While Elvis: That’s The Way It Is earns a DVD release at this time as well that contains a widescreen option in this new format, there are inexplicably no DVDs for Elvis On Tour or Elvis: The Lost Performances.

2001

Event: And here’s the big one. If you follow this kind of stuff, you knew it was coming. Warner Brothers releases Elvis: That’s The Way It Is – Special Edition on home video. The 2000 film uses some of the once-lost footage from Elvis: The Lost Performances, other lost footage, and some of the original footage as part of an entirely new cut of the classic documentary.

Associated Baggage
Where to start? First, the name. The fact that this is almost an entirely new movie is not at all obvious by adding “Special Edition” to the title of the original documentary that many Elvis fans already owned by this point.

Next, the day before the VHS version goes on sale, Turner Classic Movies airs Elvis: That’s The Way It Is – Special Edition on cable television. As long as you had the channel, you could record it with your VCR for free. You even get a few bonus songs after the movie not included on the retail VHS.

Ah, but the DVD! It will have all of those bonus songs and even more as special features, right? Well, it was supposed to, but someone apparently didn’t obtain all of the proper clearances. So there was a delay as the DVDs were re-made to exclude all of the bonus songs. Oh, and then just as they are about to hit store shelves (and possibly a few do), someone realizes that the DVD case still has references to those bonus songs that aren’t actually on the DVD. So, another delay while the cases are re-made. Finally, months after the VHS, the DVD comes out. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Oh, and Elvis: That’s The Way It Is – Special Edition uses that same underlying Elvis image as the 1997 & 1992 releases of Elvis: The Lost Performances and the 1988 release of Elvis: That’s The Way It Is.

Apparently, Warner is disappointed by the sales of the Special Edition (gee, I wonder why sales would suffer), so it cancels a similar project around Elvis On Tour.

But wait, there’s even more baggage here. The release of Elvis: That’s The Way It Is – Special Edition and its use of some of the same songs seems to have buried Elvis: The Lost Performances, which Warner never releases again.

2007

Event: A 2-DVD re-release of That’s The Way It Is: Special Edition that includes the original film and some of the excised bonus features from 2001 on the second disc.

Associated Baggage: The long-awaited bonus features were in embarrassing video quality for a mainstream release, as apparently a backup videotape copy was used when the master tapes from 2001 could not be found. While definitely watchable, the 1970 theatrical cut was also in lesser condition relative to the 2001 edit. And I’m not even going to mention what underlying cover image they decided to go with. Because even if you don’t know, you already know.

2010

Event: Elvis On Tour finally gets a DVD release! And. . . can this be. . . a Blu-ray release! It almost sounds too good to be true.

Associated Baggage: Well, it turns out that it almost is. At the last moment, Warner reveals that the opening song that plays over the credits, a rehearsal of “Johnny B. Goode,” ran into issues with obtaining clearance. From most accounts, it seemed out of their hands this time. Fair enough. What do they do? They replace it with a lacklustre live version of “Don’t Be Cruel.” Oh. . . and just to really give me nightmares, they also edit in a poor loop of the song since it wasn’t long enough to cover the opening credits sequences. So you get to hear Elvis’ “Please let’s forget the past, before I kick your–” joke not once, but twice, ladies and gentlemen. And, more relevant to this post, no bonus features. Nothing.

2014

Event: Elvis: That’s The Way It Is gets a Blu-ray release! 2001 bonus songs master tapes located and to be included!

Associated Baggage: Well, here’s what actually happened back in 2014 if you bought the Elvis: That’s The Way It Is Blu-ray. You did indeed get a Blu-ray of Elvis: That’s The Way It Is – Special Edition. The promised improved quality bonus songs? I wish I could say otherwise, but not so much. I really don’t know what they were thinking. As for the original Elvis: That’s The Way It Is movie? It is included as a second DVD, using the same master as way back in 1997. But hey, at least the art department was on top of things. When they envisioned what the cover art for this first-ever That’s The Way It Is Blu-ray should be, a certain underlying image immediately came to mind. . . .

2026: Letting it go

We could all probably think of more blunders around the handling of the lost and not-so-lost footage originally captured for Elvis: That’s The Way It Is and Elvis On Tour, but it is indeed time to let it all go.

So, here’s what I propose. That abandoned salt mine in Kansas that people keep finding this lost footage in? Let’s lock our baggage in there. Gone. Forever.

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Did I mention the full EPiC trailer is brilliant? Surely, you have watched by now? If not, you better check it out over on YouTube.

Wow.

Just wow. That’s all I’ve got.

Around the same time as the trailer, NEON also released a new poster. I mean, even if EPiC somehow turns out to be a dud, that is one awesome Elvis poster that I had to have!

Being the understanding woman that she is, my bride ordered one for me. When the package ran into shipping issues due to the recent weather events, I heard her laughing as she looked at the tracking image.

Wondering what gave her that reaction, I took a look. The tracking uses a close-up of the poster, so it looks like Elvis’ face on the map.

Sure, that’s mildly humorous, but I didn’t see why she thought it was so funny.

Then I looked again at the map.

That’s right, Elvis is stuck in Memphis!

EPiC hits IMAX theaters worldwide on February 20, with early access showings beginning on February 18, and then expands to wide release on February 27 globally.