Elvis Presley - There Ain't Nothing Like A Song (duet with Nancy Sinatra) (MGM / 1968)

Speedway is a 1968 american musical action film starring Elvis Presley as a racecar driver and Nancy Sinatra (in her last film role) as his romantic interest. Release date: June 12, 1968. Cast: Elvis Presley as Steve Grayson; Nancy Sinatra as Susan Jacks; Bill Bixby as Kenny Donford; Gale Gordon as R. W. Hepworth; William Schallert as Abel Esterlake; Victoria Paige Meyerink as Ellie Esterlake; Carl Ballantine as Birdie Kebner; Ross Hagen as Paul Dado; Charlotte Considine as Lori and Sandy Reed as Speedway Announcer. Production: Speedway was originally planned as a film to star Sonny & Cher. However, after their first movie, Good Times flopped at the box office, Columbia sold the rights to MGM, which retooled it for Elvis. Elvis was paid $850,000 plus 50% of the profits. Petula Clark and Annette Funicello were offered the lead female role, but both turned it down. Filming began on 26 June 1967. Scenes were shot at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. The film features guest appearances by several of the top stock-car—better known now as NASCAR—drivers of the day including Richard Petty, Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough, Tiny Lund and more. They were shown individually with their names in the film's opening credits. This would be the final "formula" musical film of Presley's career. His remaining films would be less musical and more adult in tone. Steve Grayson's generosity portrayed in the film was based loosely on Presley's real-life generosity, in which Presley would give cars, homes, and other expensive items to Memphis Mafia members (the media's nickname for his close group of friends and coworkers), family and friends, and even total strangers. Release: Although the film was completed in the early summer of 1967, it was not released in theaters until June 1968. It was a box-office success placing at #40 for the year on the Variety weekly national box office list. The only guitar to be featured in the film is during one of the film's closing scenes, during the performance of "There Ain't Nothing Like A Song", where a sunburst Fender Coronado is used. Home media: Speedway was released to DVD by Warner Home Video on August 7, 2007 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD. Budget: $3,000,000 / Box-office: $2,000,000 (US/Canada)!