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120 Min. Documentary for ABC News
Philip Shane, Editor
Producer/Writers: Ralph Avelino, Richard Gerdau
Editors: Philip Shane, Sikay Tang, Ralph Avelino
Elvis: Viva Las Vegas documents the king's years in a place, the International Hotel (later the Las Vegas Hilton), where he played close to one thousand shows, before two million fans, over the course of seven years. Dramatic, intense, driven, earthy, and frequently moving, an Elvis show in the early '70s was the apotheosis of rock music. It was rock and soul, gospel and pop, blues and country. It was Elvis at maximum energy, whether he was kicking his older hits into a higher gear or down-shifting to make a burning ballad out of one of his favorite songs from the past few years. Elvis and his coterie took what had once been simple and unadorned and transformed it into one of the glitziest extravaganzas ever seen.