Elvis Presley is surrounded by the machinery of Las Vegas, but the film is most alive in rehearsal
By 1970, Elvis Presley had already lived several public careers. He had been the disruptive young rock-and-roll figure of the 1950s, a soldier whose career paused at extraordinary commercial height, a Hollywood star trapped increasingly inside formula films, and the performer revitalised by the 1968 television special that demonstrated he could still command a live musical environment.
Elvis: That's the Way It Is arrives during the next phase. Denis Sanders's cameras follow rehearsals and the August 1970 Las Vegas engagement at the International Hotel, where Presley was building a stage show large enough for a showroom yet flexible enough to retain some of the energy rediscovered in 1968.
The concert footage is historically important, but the rehearsals are where the movie's central tension becomes clearest. Presley can stop, joke, repeat an arrangement, communicate with James Burton and the rhythm section, and shape the backing singers and orchestra around the phrasing he wants. The performer usually presented as an isolated icon becomes part of a working musical organisation.
This is one reason the original film and the 2001 Special Edition produce noticeably different impressions. Both use the same broad historical moment, but the later cut removes substantial documentary material and increases the proportion of Presley rehearsing and performing. The version choice therefore changes the argument.
Las Vegas in 1970 is not yet the shorthand for decline that later mythology made it
Elvis's Las Vegas years became so strongly associated with jumpsuits, excess and his physical deterioration later in the decade that the phrase "Vegas Elvis" can collapse several very different periods into one image. The 1970 film provides a useful correction. Presley is still in the early phase of his renewed live career, and the band surrounding him is exceptionally strong. Guitarist James Burton brings a precise country and rock-and-roll vocabulary, Jerry Scheff's bass gives the arrangements movement, Ron Tutt provides a powerful but responsive drum style, and Glen D. Hardin's piano contributes to the mixture of country, gospel, rock and pop that defines the show. The Sweet Inspirations and the Imperials add vocal depth, while Joe Guercio's orchestra allows arrangements to expand toward the large-room sound expected at the International Hotel.
This is already a substantial entertainment machine, but it has not yet become automatic. Presley is visibly involved in how the songs work.
The distinction matters because later decline can distort earlier evidence. A viewer who knows how the 1970s end may treat every grand arrangement as the beginning of excess. In 1970, the scale is also evidence of ambition: Presley is attempting to build a contemporary live identity after years in which his film career had increasingly separated him from the musical changes happening around him.
James Burton gives the show a direct line back to American guitar history
Burton's presence is fundamental because he connects Presley's new Las Vegas band to several strands of American popular music. His work with Ricky Nelson and numerous country and rock sessions had already established him as one of the defining electric guitarists of the period.
In the rehearsal footage, his role becomes easier to appreciate than it might in a finished record mix. Burton does not attempt to dominate Presley with extended lead-guitar display. Short fills, rhythmic accents and carefully shaped solos create a language that supports a singer whose phrasing can change from performance to performance.
The TCB Band, as the live group came to be known, operates through this responsiveness. Scheff, Tutt and Hardin can follow Presley's changes without making the arrangements feel unstable.
This is especially important because Elvis's catalogue contains songs from different eras and genres. A 1950s hit, a recent contemporary cover and a gospel-influenced ballad cannot all be played with one generic "Elvis sound" if the show is going to remain musically alive. Burton and the band make stylistic continuity possible without flattening the differences.
The film's most useful historical contribution may therefore be showing that Presley's live return was not simply a matter of the star deciding to perform again. It required a new ensemble capable of translating his catalogue into 1970.
Rehearsal strips away some of the distance created by celebrity
The rehearsal room creates a different Elvis from the hotel stage. There is less choreography, fewer formal audience expectations and more opportunity for the camera to observe the work behind a familiar voice.
Presley jokes frequently, occasionally loses focus and then snaps back into a performance with remarkable speed. Songs are tried, arrangements adjusted and cues established. This makes musical authority visible without requiring the film to present him as a stern bandleader.
The humour also has a double edge. TCM's discussion of the Special Edition notes that some earlier material showing Presley joking around with songs could reinforce the later caricature of a performer sliding toward self-parody. The 2001 recut therefore made deliberate choices about which Elvis the audience would encounter.
That editorial intervention is historically important. Documentary footage may be real, but character emerges through selection. One editor can emphasise professionalism; another can emphasise humour, fan culture or the wider Las Vegas environment.
Neither version contains a fictional Elvis. They arrange the same person differently. The Screening Room should treat this as a central reason to preserve both cuts rather than declaring one correct and the other obsolete.
The original 1970 film spends more time on the world around Elvis
The theatrical version runs 108 minutes according to TCM's detailed version history. It includes material involving fans, convention activity and other contextual sequences that extend the movie beyond rehearsals and stage performance.
For some modern viewers, these sections can feel like distractions. They interrupt the concentrated pleasure of watching Presley work with the band and reduce the number of songs that can fit into the runtime.
Historically, they provide another kind of evidence. Elvis in 1970 is not only a musician. He is a phenomenon with an organised fan culture, a business infrastructure and a relationship with Las Vegas as a destination. The surrounding material documents the machinery required to transform an artist into an institution.
This is where the original cut differs most meaningfully from the 2001 Special Edition. The first movie asks, at least partially, what exists around Elvis, while the later version asks more aggressively what Elvis is doing musically. A viewer may prefer the second question, but an archive gains more by preserving both answers.
The difference is similar to comparing Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones with a backstage tour documentary. One gives clearer musical evidence while the other reveals the social structure surrounding the performance.
The 2001 Special Edition is shorter because it contains more Elvis, not less material overall
The counterintuitive fact about the Special Edition is that it runs roughly twelve to thirteen minutes shorter than the original while containing substantially more performance material. Rick Schmidlin's team removed much of the non-Elvis documentary content and replaced it with previously unseen rehearsals and concert footage.
TCM lists the Special Edition at 96 minutes and the original at 108. The New Zealand International Film Festival catalogued the 2001 cut at 94 minutes and noted that nearly forty percent of the re-edited version consisted of previously unseen footage.
These small runtime discrepancies probably reflect timing and exhibition conventions, but the structural difference is clear. The 2001 version is a recut, not a restoration of the original feature.
This distinction is essential. Marketing language around older films often uses "special edition," "restored" and "expanded" almost interchangeably. Here, the later film changes the editorial argument.
Several original performances disappear while new material enters. TCM specifically notes the omission of the concert performance of "I Just Can't Help Believin'" even though rehearsal footage for the song remains. A viewer therefore cannot assume the Special Edition contains everything in the original plus additional songs. The two versions are complementary and mutually incomplete.
Elvis's repertoire shows how aggressively he was absorbing contemporary songs
Presley in 1970 was not relying solely on the 1950s catalogue that had made him famous. The show included recent material and covers reflecting country, pop, soul and singer-songwriter trends around him.
This matters because Elvis is often positioned in histories as the origin point from which later rock developed, making his 1970s career appear backward-looking by definition. The film reveals a performer still listening outward.
His interpretations of contemporary material do not always replace the originals culturally, nor do they need to. The important point is that Presley treats songs as repertoire rather than property sealed permanently around one recording artist.
This approach connects him to Joe Cocker in the previous film, though their stage personalities are radically different. Both singers can take familiar compositions and reorganise phrasing until the song begins to sound specifically theirs.
Presley's advantage is the enormous range of traditions already contained in his voice. Gospel, country, blues and pop can enter the same show without requiring a conceptual explanation. The Vegas band is built to support exactly that flexibility.
The camera records an artist learning how to inhabit a stage after cinema had kept him away from one
Presley's 1960s film schedule had gradually become one of the central frustrations of his career. Repetitive movie productions and soundtrack obligations limited his engagement with the rapidly changing rock culture around him. The 1968 television special demonstrated a different possibility, and the Las Vegas residencies created the infrastructure for a sustained return to live performance.
That's the Way It Is is therefore partly a film about rediscovered professional practice. Rehearsing a band, deciding keys, shaping an arrangement and facing a live audience night after night are skills separate from lip-syncing a song on a movie set. Presley looks energised by the work because the work requires him.
This does not mean the Las Vegas structure was automatically healthy or sustainable. The residency model would eventually become repetitive, and his schedule across the decade contributed to a life increasingly difficult to manage. In 1970, however, those later problems should not be allowed to erase the sense of renewal visible on screen. The film belongs to the period when returning to the stage still looked like liberation.
The version history makes a two-disc or clearly labelled edition especially valuable
A 2007 Warner home-video release included both the original 108-minute theatrical cut and the 2001 Special Edition, along with additional footage. Library catalogues preserve the two-version structure clearly, which makes this one of the easiest Screening Room cases in which the site can recommend a package for historical rather than merely technical reasons.
Seeing both films allows the viewer to experience editing as interpretation. The same historical event becomes two substantially different documentaries.
The original provides more of the cultural world around Elvis. The Special Edition provides a tighter musical portrait. Additional outtakes demonstrate that neither exhausts the surviving archive.
For RetroForge, this is exactly the kind of film where a simple star rating or one-paragraph recommendation would be inadequate. The interesting question is not only whether the movie is good but which movie carrying this title someone has actually watched. Version history is part of the content.
The best corrective to the caricature of 1970s Elvis is the sound of the band working
Later images of Presley became so dominant that they can flatten his entire final decade into a cautionary story. That's the Way It Is does not eliminate the tragedy that eventually followed, but it restores sequence.
In August 1970, Elvis is thirty-five years old, engaged with a formidable band and capable of performances that justify the scale surrounding him. The orchestra and backing singers are large because he is building a contemporary Las Vegas show, not because he has already become the parody later culture sometimes remembers.
The rehearsal footage is especially valuable because it turns the icon back into a musician. He listens, adjusts, jokes and sings until the arrangement works. No later biography can replace that evidence.
Watching and collecting note
Preserve both major cuts. The 1970 original runs 108 minutes and contains more surrounding documentary material, while the 2001 Special Edition runs roughly 94-96 minutes and substantially increases the focus on Presley in rehearsal and performance. The later version is a recut, not merely a restored longer edition.