Tossing and Turning is up from #5 to #4, while an Ivy League protege, Val McKenna joins the climber list. Meanwhile, the two 'flocks of birds' swap places at the top

Alan Field's Fab 40 notes:
From the summer when the EP was king, an EP from the King himself. In at #30 this week, Elvis with 5 songs from his film, Tickle Me: I Feel That I've Known You Forever, Slowly But Surely, Night Rider, Put The Blame On Me, and Dirty Dirty Feeling. Elvis plays a singing rodeo cowboy with a second job as a handyman at a health ranch, whose clientele includes a bevy of beautiful girls all competing for his attention. The latter part of the film contains some wonderful slapstick comedy, with Elvis and his girl searching for treasure in a haunted house. (Writers Elwood Ullman and Edward Bernds had previously worked with The Three Stooges) It's rumoured that film-makers Allied Artists were in financial difficulties when they signed Elvis to star in Tickle Me, and saved on production costs by agreeing with Colonel Tom Parker to have Elvis mime to old songs instead of recording new ones. The 9 tracks in the film all date from 1960 - 62, and all had been previously released on albums. In the UK there was a 'Volume 2' EP featuring the remaining songs from the film: (Such An) Easy Question, It Feels So Right, I'm Yours and (It's A) Long Lonely Highway. In the States these were issued, respectively, as the A and B sides of two singles, which both peaked at #11 on Billboard during the summer of 1965.

Mary's Fab 40 notes:
Tickle Me, the movie, is available on DVD and Blu-Ray import and appropriately, the soundtrack was issued in the UK on the Follow That Dream label, on July 18th 2005 – exactly 40 years to the day that the EP entered the Big L Fab 40!

The Colonel promoted the film by having a million feathers handed-out to cinema-goers. As to the current value of one of those feathers, and how it could be proven that the item was a genuine Tickle Me quill and not one plucked from a passing pigeon, we can't speculate.

The remastered film soundtrack CD, was released 18/07/05. The soundtrack was also released as a twenty-track vinyl collector's item including alternate takes and even some radio trailers for the film.

Fans of things extremely silly, will enjoy clicking here to visit Mr Smarty Pants' website, where you can tickle Elvis and make him quiver and giggle! Mr Smarty Pants also reviewed the film thus:

'Apparently, being tied up by women with ropes is a "ticklish" subject for Elvis Presley in his 1965 movie, "Tickle Me" released by United Artists. Elvis stars as "Lonnie," a singer rodeo rider who is hired by Julie Adams to work at her all-girl health spa/dude ranch. He leads young beauties in aerobic classes, finds gold in a ghost town filled with villains disguised as monsters, and marries phys-ed teacher Jocelyn Lane. The film also stars Merry Anders and Allison Hayes.'