Review of Elvis The Great Performances (Volume 3)

Introduction

Before I saw the first volume of The Great Performances, my knowledge of The King was pretty poor. Now, after the first chapter chronicling his overall career, and the second one focusing on his Army days and movie career, this third and final volume fills in the gaps left by the excellent introduction and middle acts - and leaves me with a competent knowledge of one of the most influential musicians of recent times.

This volume seems to be different to the other two on first impressions...from the change in narrator (from Elvis` friend George Klein to U2`s Bono) to the addition of credits at the beginning of the 50 minute feature.

Again, disc wise, this volume is almost identical to the other two, so the disc review is practically the same as my other two.

Video

It is presented in 4:3 Fullscreen, a mixture of colour and black & white footage, shot throughout his 20 year `reign`. The print (or make that prints) is crisp throughout, and it is free of dust or grain. Although a remastered, anamorphic widescreen, transfer would have been great (and it would have improved the quality slightly), seeing Elvis in traditional form does add some authenticity to it.

Each track is performed differently, whether it`s his different hairstyles, dance routines or just general emotions and attitudes at the time of the recording. A highlight of this volume is seeing Elvis in tails during a more `mature` TV appearance...

Audio

A choice of a DD 5.1 or Dolby Stereo track is on offer. The DD 5.1 track makes good use of the surrounds, so the addictive rhythm of the songs are reproduced well in crisp surround sound. The stereo track is a good alternative if you don`t have a 5.1 setup, but of course, the impact you get from the surrounds is much better.

The main audio stream of the narration is clear and crisp, and the ambience levels during the songs are just right. If you don`t care for the visual side of the disc, and just want 13 of Elvis` finest songs in their finest quality, this still would be a wise purchase.

Features

Yet again, the main extra on the disc is a photo gallery, with stills from his various performances. As well as this (and face it, it`s a sparse extra), there are some good interactive menus, first of all asking you what audio setup you want, before you get the choice of watching the documentary, watching one of the 14 songs (some of the songs are incorporated into the documentary), watching the videos of Elvis with friends and family (again, some of these are in the documentary) or taking a look at the photo gallery.

Although it would have been nice to improve the extras for this final volume, the documentary is yet again interesting enough to satisfy you.

Conclusion

In my opinion it would have been best to group the three volumes together in one Elvis extravaganza, but each volume does offer enough insight to warrant a purchase of each one.

Disc wise, everything is good as usual, although no extra effort has been made on the extras. Surely if they had added some interviews or a featurette or two it would have made the collection go out with a bigger bang.

Overall, as I have said before, this comes recommended to Elvis fans, and for people like me who didn`t know much about him before, it is a wise purchase, and it seems that The Great Performances is the definite Elvis documentary.

Elvis has now left the building...