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The 1966 release of Frankie and Johnny
was Elvis' twentieth movie and second for United Artists. Based loosely
on the song of the same name it is set roughly around the late
nineteenth and turn of the twentieth century. In the film he plays
Johnny, a singer and gambler with a losing streak on a river showboat
opposite Donna
Douglas, of The
Beverly Hillbillies fame, as Frankie.
Though
the film has about twelve songs in it, Elvis is only pictured playing a
(tenor) guitar once, briefly as a lead in to a dream sequence during his
troubles with Donna Douglas' character. A tenor guitar was likely
chosen for the film for its period correctness but for whatever reason
they chose not to replace one of the blatantly missing strings.
A tenor guitar is a four stringed guitar tuned in "fifths" to CGDA like tenor
banjos but could also be tuned as mandolins or ukuleles. They have been around since sometime after the turn of the twentieth century but major instrument manufacturers like Martin and Gibson, along with some other banjo manufacturers of the period, started to manufacture them in
1927 as America went through its mandolin and ukulele craze.
Initially
they were developed to allow banjo players and mandolin players to double on the guitar without having to learn the scales and chord shapes for the entirely different tuning of a six string guitar thus linking the beginnings of a trend away from the banjo towards the guitar as the main rhythm instrument in jazz bands and dance orchestras.
The
guitar makes one final appearance in the film hanging in the window of a
store as Elvis walks and sings down a street set in New Orleans
accompanied by a boy playing a blues harp (harmonica).
This particular model tenor guitar used in the film is a Harmony made Stella
H929TG, the tenor version of the same model as one of the guitars
Elvis is seen playing in MGM's
Jailhouse Rock.
This Stella Tenor is the same
size and shape as the H929 six string versions with the same Mahogany
sunburst vertical faux flame figured finish. It has a pin bridge
on a birch body and top and a neck of hard maple with rosewood stained fretboard. They were made from around 1951 to 1970 and in 1966
listed for $28.50. This
page added August 15, 2010 is part of the section The
Movie Guitars of Elvis Presley. The history of tenor guitars is
courtesy of and according to TenorGuitar.com
while the specifications for the Stella model was obtained directly from the
Harmony guitars
database.
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All photos on this site (that we didn't borrow) unless otherwise indicated are the property of either Scotty Moore or James V. Roy and unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited. |
