Mr. Presley’s second picture is a success story, a suspiciously defiant treatment of one young feller’s rise from threadbare Southern blue jeans to musical fame and fortune. The hero of this story is a shy, simple and modest lad hog-tied by a hard-boiled publicist and forced to submit to such promotional bait as eye-blinding hillbilly attire and spectacular cars. All he wants, really, is to bellow across his guitar, wiggle out from under it and scoot around in his li’l ole hotrod car. Does Elvis sing? More or less—eight numbers, including the title tune twice. And from this sampling of his musical art, not to say acting, it seems likely indeed that he won’t change. Artistically, Elvis grunts his melodies (with a few audible lyrics), studiously shaking his hair over his eyes, whacking his gee-tar and writhing away as if he had just sat down on an anthill. He also studiously refrains from looking into the camera, and who can blame him? — The New York Times, 1957.