Offered is an original production script for Elvis Presley's first film, Love Me Tender. This 1953 "FINAL"draft has the film's original title, “The Reno Brothers,” stamped on the front of its blue-colored cover. The new title is handwritten in pencil directly above the stamped original title and date of March 15, 1952. The script is marked “FINAL” and numbered “2671-3” in the upper right corner of the cover. It is stamped along the bottom “Property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation / Return to Stenographic Department.” A typewritten note, dated March 9, 1953, is included on the first interior page and reads: “Dear Mr. Zanuck: The correct length of this script, allowing for short pages, would be 104 pages instead of 107. In the old form the correct length would be 124 pages.”
Darryl Zanuck, now a household Hollywood name, was a revolutionary film producer and studio executive who co-founded Twentieth Century Fox and was the first to address issues of the environment, race and religion on the big screen. He is remembered for some of the most important and controversial films in cinema history during his long Hollywood career, which spanned more than 50 years from the 1920s well into the 1970s. The offered script and inter-office memo attached show his hands-on management of his films. The script was adjusted during production, but the final scene with Elvis' character's death is in place in this original version. Elvis attended the Memphis premiere with his mother Gladys, and when she cried at the death of her son’s character at the end of the movie, Elvis vowed never again to take a role in which his character perished. Gladys wasn’t the only one to take umbrage with Elvis’ onscreen demise—when test audiences reacted poorly to seeing him expire, the studio quickly had Elvis add another verse to the title track that could be sung by his ghostly image above the final scene.
Elvis Presley exploded onto the national scene in 1956 with a slew of #1 hits for RCA, several landmark television appearances and his Hollywood film debut as Clint Reno in Love Me Tender. The film was retitled from The Reno Brothers late in production to capitalize on the raging success of Elvis’ single “Love Me Tender,” which sold an unprecedented one million copies prior to its release. Reworked slightly for the young singer, Love Me Tender was a fairly straightforward Western tale with some nice plot twists and some songs thrown in for good measure. The film was premiered by Twentieth Century Fox on November 15, 1956 in New York City and on November 20 in Memphis.
The offered script is an incredible relic from Elvis’ first foray into Hollywood. The script measures 11 by 8 1/2 inches and shows wear from office handling but remains intact. Excellent to Mint condition.