We’re back with an all-new season of Guide for the Film Fanatic! In each episode, Jason Bailey and Mike Hull invite a guest from the world of film (including filmmakers, authors, critics, actors, and more) to select one of the 1600+ “must-see movies” collected in Danny Peary’s seminal 1986 book, Guide for the Film Fanatic. Bailey, Hull, and their guests deep dive on each film, discussing its history, themes, style, performances, initial reception, and legacy, taking a fresh look at some of the most beloved titles in cinema history.

If you’ve spent any time reading the marvelous, energetic, infectiously enthusiastic prose of Sheila O’Malley — film critic, essayist, and author of the recent The Art and Making of Frankenstein — you will not be surprised that, given a list of movies to choose from, she chose one starring Elvis Presley. So we discussed King Creole, his 1958 vehicle directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Carolyn Jones, Dolores Hart, and a (comparatively!) young Walter Matthau.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve partnered up with One Heat Minute Productions on this show, so we’ve migrated over to their feed; subscribe now if you haven’t already. 

We’re also putting our new episodes up on YouTube! Watch the show on our YouTube channel, @guideforthefilmfanatic, for visual accompaniment and bonus stuff and who knows what else:

King Creole is currently streaming on Hoopla and is available for digital rental or purchase; you can also get a gorgeous Blu-ray of it from Paramount, or you can wait until July and get the 4K UHD from KL Studio Classics. You can read the New York Times review here, the Billboard review here, and the Catholic World review here. You can hear Sheila’s A Very Good Year episode here, you can read a piece she wrote for Film Comment about Elvis’s acting (opening with some thoughts on King Creole) here, and her piece about his “adventures in Hollywood” for Criterion here.

You can buy The Art and Making of Frankenstein here, check out Sheila’s blog here, check out her Substack here, and follow her on Bluesky and Instagram. If you’d like to check out the YouTube page for Mike’s other podcast, “Black Diplomats,” it’s here. And Jason’s book Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend is OUT NOW, and you can order it from MZS Press, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your hardbacks, ebooks, paperbacks, and/or audiobooks. 

Last but not least, if you’d like to make a little donation to support us and the show, you can do that at Ko-fi!