#danny fisher

[deke-rivers-1957]

King Creole Review

There's a lot of history with this movie. Based on the Harold Robbins book A Stone for Danny Fisher, Hal Wallis bought the rights to make a movie with the intent on casting James Dean in 1955. However, with the death of James Dean in that same year, this movie was initially canceled. It wasn't until Hal heard of the successful off-Broadway version in 1957 that Elvis was considered for the lead role. Production was very troubled due to Elvis getting his draft notice a month before filming began. To avoid losing money that was already invested, Elvis had to get a 60 day deferment.

With Elvis officially able to film, the plot had to be retooled to fit Elvis' southern roots including changing the setting to New Orleans as well as making him a singer instead of a Jewish boxer. This movie has the luxury of being filmed in New Orleans' French Quarter with the Fisher family living right on the infamous Bourbon Street. Given the nature of the original story, famous director Micheal Curtiz was selected in addition to well experienced cast. Once filming was completed, Elvis was officially inducted into the army only two weeks later. Considered by fans as the most cinematic Elvis movie, does it deserve the title as the best Elvis movie or is this movie overrated and a complete rush job to cash in on Elvis astronomical rise to fame? Let's find out.

We are immediately greeted by pure New Orleans aesthetics with various black street vendors singing about their wares. I know it's not on the official soundtrack so I'm lumping it in with "Crawfish" as it marks the first time we ever get a duet in an Elvis movie. When I think about that song, I actually don't think about Elvis. I think about Kitty White and all of the vendors vocals. I was impressed that we emphasize the history of New Orleans by focusing on the French Quarter as that's the oldest neighborhood in the city. I couldn't think of a better way to start the film off.

Danny and his family are introduced and we're told that both Danny as well as his sister Mimi have to work. Ever since their mother died, Mr. Fisher couldn't keep a job to save his life. You can tell this is a dated movie because programs that would've at least slightly helped this family wouldn't exist until the 1960s. Heck food stamps wouldn't even exist until 1964. While there were programs meant for unemployment and dependent children, it's obvious that they don't qualify for that. Even if they did, the apartment they live in is all they can afford. It's a very bad place to be in so of course you understand why Danny wants to graduate and start working full time.

Before going to school, Danny works a couple hours at a nightclub as a bus boy. We see based on the sign outside as Danny walks in that it's interestingly enough called the Gilded Cage. The name as we'll find out is more than fitting. Some men are completely drunk and one of them wants to dance with a woman named Ronnie. The interaction makes you feel very uncomfortable because you know that while Danny can just keep his head down to avoid trouble, the situation was getting wildly out of hand. So to avoid having to listen to Ronnie getting beat, he decides to sing. It's incredible how right off the bat, this movie doesn't hesitate to build off the gritty nature Jailhouse Rock tried to develop.

"Steadfast, Loyal And True" feels like a moment of irony. Danny is being made fun of for going to school. Ironically it also represents Danny's innocence. It still doesn't stop the man from hitting Ronnie again and we see Danny directly get himself involved so the situation doesn't continue to escalate. He makes sure that Ronnie is safe on his way back to school. Yet when he does get in trouble for getting into a fight, the teacher decides to fail him. The principal goes along with it as if there was no other alternative and he has no authority to overrule her judgement since they didn't even hear Danny's side yet. Danny wouldn't have gotten into that fight, if he didn't get Ronnie out of there. And now he's being punished by a system that's meant to keep kids off the streets. Had Danny been allowed to graduate, none of this would've happened. But because it didn't, we are seeing Danny come to a point in life where he's questioning if doing the right thing is worth it anymore.

Deciding to quit school, Danny runs into Shark's gang. Shark gets mad because Danny punched his brother. We get introduced to his two lackeys, Sal and Dummy. Naturally there's a lot wrong with a man being called Dummy when he's very clearly mute (or at the very least has severe issues with speaking), but this is 1958. People with disabilities were treated poorly on a regular basis to the point of it being normalized. While Shark wants to get even for what Danny did to his brother, Danny doesn't mess around by immediately pinning Shark against the wall. Having a certain amount of respect, Shark offers to let Danny in with the gang about a possible job. Danny still wanting to have a good moral standing of course says no and heads home.

As soon as he gets home, everyone's disappointed to hear that he wouldn't graduate. Somehow Mr. Fisher makes an agreement with the principal that Danny can graduate after one semester if he can get the job at the pharmacy. That's right his dad's a pharmacist and you really start to question what on earth he did with his life if they fell on hard times that fast. I know that they lived in the French Quarter for 3 years because he went into a depressive state and couldn't work, but you seriously have to question on how someone can go to medical school to get a pharmaceutical degree and not have any kind of nest egg saved up. Even back in the 1950s, people in the medical field would've been comfortably well off. But regardless, I get why you have this since you need to have Danny make it very clear why he's so aggressive. Mr. Fisher has no backbone or self respect that even when he gets punched in the face, he didn't do anything about it.

To prove his point that he'll never end up spineless like his father, Danny decides to join Shark's gang. While he doesn't actually steal anything, he does sing "Lover Doll" to distract the crowd. I have no idea why the entire store gets distracted by this but it works. I also have no idea why a nickel and dime store would have anything expensive like watches or jewelry but at that point you just have to say "whatever". So to avoid suspicion, Danny hangs around the counter where he meets Nellie. For some reason, she says that she knew he was in on it, but doesn't do anything about it. I admit this whole scene is just weird but we have so much movie left that you kind of forget about this. I'm also just realizing that if Nellie is just now meeting Danny for the first time, yet we see that she's in walking distance from her house, she's older than Danny. The Fisher's lived in that apartment for 3 years and that school looks small enough where everybody knows everybody. For all we know she could be Mimi's age.

Meanwhile we get a very blatant case of ageism in the workforce. Mr. Fisher goes to the pharmacy for a job and if it wasn't for the head pharmacist's boss saying if he's qualified he should get the job, he wouldn't have gotten the job. Mr. Primont outright says that he wanted a younger man to Mr. Fisher's face. Throughout the movie we see that Mr. Primont only wants a younger man so he can train them to do it his way. It's pretty progressive to not pull any punches when showing this. They do not hesitate to make it clear that Mr. Fisher is being discriminated because of his age as opposed to a genuine display of incompetence. In fact, Mr. Primont's boss makes it a point to say that Mr. Fisher shouldn't be judged by his age or by the quality of his suit but his competence and that they've gone through a lot of younger pharmacists that couldn't cut it. So Mr. Primont begrudgingly hires him.

Later that night Danny runs into Ronnie again but also finally meets his boss, Maxie Fields. Maxie being the jealous type, thought she was cheating on him with Danny. She tries to make it clear that things were innocent as she heard him sing and Danny of course goes along with it. After all, any decent human being who already saw someone like Ronnie getting abused would do what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again. Calling his bluff, Maxie wants Danny to sing right on stage. I genuinely think "Trouble" has one of the most natural build ups in an Elvis movie. It's a character defining song as you get the idea that Danny is singing it directly to Maxie. The black jazz musicians also showcases the sense of scale where people of color aren't just used as window dressing to fill in the shot. If Danny was asked to sing a capella or with the Blue Moon Boys cameoing as his back up band, it wouldn't work. It would feel like an Elvis song. But because we did get black jazz musicians to reflect the New Orleans setting, this is no longer an Elvis song but Danny's. And he makes his point loud and clear.

He gets introduced to Charlie LeGrand who owns the King Creole and offers Danny a job. In an act of foreshadowing, Maxie comes in and says that even if Danny leaves he'll always get what he wants. Knowing that Danny can sing, Maxie of course would want him too. Danny leaves the club as he doesn't want to make a rash decision and we see more of Shark's gang as well as a blatant case of ableism. Shark doesn't want to give Dummy (which I'm not calling him for the rest of this review) his equal share of the money made from their theft and that he should be thankful to be getting anything. But that's where we get Danny making the decision to step up and take the money out of Shark's hand so he can give it to the man. This is where Danny shines as a character since we see that even when he does something wrong, he still has some morality to him. While he did participate in the larceny, he also made sure that the money was distributed fairly even though he knew this would put him in Shark's bad graces. There will be times when he very easily could've made a bad moral decision if it benefited him, but instead tried to keep kind.

Danny picks up Nellie after work and we get another instance of him making a bad decision but still keep kind. When he takes her to the motel, he pays the man at the front desk to get a room. Obviously his intention was to bed her, but Nellie starts getting nervous. Once he sees that she while she does like him, she isn't ready for that type of relationship he backs off. Even though he just paid for the room and there's even images of a deleted shot of them in the room, they leave. This is when we see Danny realize that despite his reputation of being a hoodlum, he really doesn't act like one.

When Ronnie shows up, even when he kisses her, I don't take it as him actually being interested. He just thinks he is because he thinks this is the type of girl that he deserves. A good girl like Nellie would just be wishful thinking since he was only minutes if not seconds away from bringing her down with him. Of course, Danny still has his moments of morality as he's willing to stick up for his father. After checking in on him at the pharmacy, he sees Mr. Fisher getting berated by Mr. Primont. While he doesn't reveal that he's Mr. Fisher's son, he does stick up for him by saying that his father saved his life after getting a bad prescription. Sure it's a lie, but he needs Mr. Primont to see that even though Mr. Fisher isn't a young man, he's competent. All he needs to do now is to get a spine.

Once he talks with Mr. LeGrand, Danny invites him to dinner so he can try to convince Mr. Fisher to let Danny work. Then we get a weird scene where he expresses interest in Mimi. If we're assuming she's in her 20s that's fine, but Mr. LeGrand looks way older than 40. I know people back then didn't put that much thought in preventing wrinkles, but it visually looks weird to have this man want to date a woman young enough to be his daughter. I don't hate it though since if Danny makes his club a success and Mr. LeGrand marries Mimi, she'll be able to stop working. Since we don't know exactly what she does, we can assume that she's really only working so they don't starve as opposed to genuinely being interested in it.

Despite his father's wishes, Danny has his first show at the King Creole. But first we're treated to Forty Nina in Hollywood's tribute to Josephine Baker. It's so on the nose that not only is she French, but her song is literally called "Banana" and she has that same strip tease outfit with bananas on it. I highly recommend looking up Josephine's story as she did a lot more than just work as an erotic dancer. My personal favorite factoid was that she was a prominent black figure who aided the French Resistance during WWII. Anyway, Danny has his first performance at the King Creole. At first the crowd sits on their hands, but after "Dixieland Rock" it's hard not to get the club buzzing.

With Danny being a success, he tries to take things a little further with Nellie. He goes on a ferry ride with her so he can show her the old house his family used to live in. You really get the idea that this house is his motivation to work so hard. He wants to be a success so one day he can buy that house back. And this to me also confirms that whatever feelings he has for Ronnie aren't that serious. He never opens up to her about this the way he does with Nellie. If anything this is a tieback to the mindset people had where good girls are for serious relationships. Bad girls were for fooling around and with how they parallel Nellie and Ronnie it's obvious that both represent the two paths Danny can take. At his second show he sings "Young Dreams" and I love how it fits into what we've seen about Danny so far. The songs really add to the narrative as they reflect Danny's emotional state.

After getting an update on his father and seeing that nothing changed about Mr. Primont, he runs into Shark again. No harsh words this time, but a way to get Danny in with Maxie. Shark proposes that if Danny comes with him, he'll help Danny take care of Primont. This goes about as well as you think as Maxie turns Danny off with every sentence he utters. The way he has Ronnie show off her legs makes him feel uncomfortable and I get why. The objectification of her when she clearly hates it, is enough to make anyone feel gross. Even if he did have feelings for her, watching her do this knowing it's because Maxie is baiting him makes him feel sick inside. Leaving the apartment with no deal made, Danny sings "New Orleans" and I just love how with every song, the atmosphere around him seems to get darker. That indicates that while things might look good, we're actually being led to something more sinister.

That something sinister very quickly comes as Danny leaves ahead of his next show to call the plot off with Shark. As angry as he was with Mr. Primont, he knew that he couldn't go through with it. He realized that if this success lasts, he can get his father out of this trouble on his own. Things go from bad to worse when we see that instead of Mr. Primont, Mr. Fisher goes to take the money to the bank. Even though they saw that it was Mr. Fisher, they still go through with it. They were already in too deep to quit and knowing Maxie and Danny, this is exactly what they need to get Danny under his thumb. Danny meanwhile just runs away feeling guilty about it. Mimi sends Nellie to get Danny and bring him to the hospital where they find out there's a lot of pressure in his brain. To save his life, a specialized surgeon will have to be brought in and it's very expensive. I'm well aware that insurance exists and it would've covered a good portion of it since this was a life or death situation, but even then the bill for his eventual recovery would still be a lot more than what they can afford.

Enter the surgeon courtesy of Maxie Fields who is willing to pay for everything. Naturally Mr. Fisher lives and we get the most vulnerable acting in any Elvis movie. Danny reminds us all that he's only 19. While men were expected to be mature by then, from a modern perspective you get the idea that this is a boy. Danny age wise might be an adult, but experience wise and emotionally speaking he's still a boy. He very much does his best to act like an adult, but this was his breaking point. I wouldn't be surprised if he actually fainted because of how stressful it was to wait all those hours. Thankfully he's able to go to another show and sing "Hard Headed woman". It's amazing how light everything is now reflecting how Danny thinks everything will be ok. We're treated to the titular song, "King Creole" and Danny's on top of the world.

That is until Shark shows up. Knowing Danny's in debt to him, Maxie asks for him to be sent to the apartment. That's when we see the trap being laid up when Ronnie is shown in an attractive dress and Maxie's dead asleep. She even makes it clear that her job is to seduce Danny so Maxie can then present him with a bill for using her "services". Every scene with Ronnie is sad since it's obvious that she's being abused. This clearly isn't a situation where she can go to the police. She does fight back against Maxie, so fear isn't the reason behind her silence. Maxie wouldn't be doing this without fear of being punished if he genuinely thought the police would do anything.

Danny of course empathizes with her since she was once a singer like him and tries to give her some affection in spite of it being a trap. And of course, Maxie wakes up in time to see Danny. While Danny does evade the bill trap, Maxie succeeds in trapping him via blackmail. I mean if it was just "sign with me or I'll tell your dad about your involvement with the robbery" Danny himself made it clear that he doesn't care about it. However, Maxie ups the ante by saying "sign with me or Charlie's place'll be filled with stink bombs. Maybe even real bombs. Anything can be made into an accident after all". That's right we got a threat of terrorist attack if Danny doesn't sign. Even if it is a bluff, you don't mess around with innocent lives like that. The meme above summarizes my thoughts on the matter since no rational human being would be able to make a good decision in that situation either.

We return to the dark scenery as Danny makes his final appearance at the King Creole. "Don't Ask Me Why" indeed. I don't think Danny telling anyone now would be any good. All it would do is drag them all down. Can you imagine having to look your sister in the eye as she chews you out for betraying everyone? Insanity. And yet Danny does this because he doesn't want anyone else getting hurt.

This includes Nellie. He breaks things off with her but can't tell her why. You just feel bad because as much as it's a self sabotage, you can't really blame him for doing this. Things continue to get worse as his mute friend writes a note saying Mr. Fisher is talking with Maxie. While he doesn't know the situation, he at least tries to support Danny's career by pleading for Maxie to let him stay. He's worried that the loss of Danny would result in LeGrand's club closing. That would mean his daughter's future would be in danger too. After seeing Shark come in, Mr. Fisher says that he's going to go to the police. That's when Maxie let it slip that Danny was in on the robbery.

The outcome is when things officially get out of hand. The look on Mr. Fisher's face when he found out Danny would sink so low. He's so angry that he doesn't even say anything. He basically disowns Danny for this. With the agreement being broken, Danny has nothing to lose. He attacks Maxie with such a ferocity, that you think he could actually kill Maxie if he didn't get hit in the head with a chair. Interesting fact, that chair was real. It was simply made of balsa wood so it wouldn't be as painful. Walter Matthau who played Maxie once said in an interview that during a practice shot, Elvis actually vomited after being hit because he just had lunch. And when you hear the sound of him hitting Danny with the chair, it sounds so real that you forget you're watching a movie.

Danny of course recovers long enough to take out Maxie so he and Ronnie can escape. Maxie meanwhile, notifies Shark and his gang to attack Danny. Knowing that he's being followed, Danny tries to hide long enough for him to knock one of them out. Biding his time until Shark appears, the two scuffle with a knife. In a scene where you genuinely worry that Danny might die in this fight, the tension is through the roof. It gets so serious that while Danny does succeed in not dying but letting Shark stab himself in the chest by accident, the damage was done. Danny had been stabbed himself in the arm.

The cinematography of Danny trying to get back home is so beautiful. You know things are looking bad with how he stumbles just getting up the stairs. I was in total shock to see blood running down Danny's arm after Mr. Fisher turned him away. Based on the blood flow being that heavy that you see it already dripping down to his hand, you just know a major vein was severed. With the adrenaline waning, Danny starts to faint from blood loss. This is when you know if it wasn't clear earlier that this movie has teeth. It's not afraid to show someone die and also isn't afraid to show Danny almost die too. But this is when we get to see his fate turn around where as bad as things are, him choosing to be kind is being rewarded. Because we clearly saw that he wasn't completely uneducated, Danny's mute friend communicated to Ronnie that Danny was in trouble. If he didn't do that, Danny would've bled to death right in that alley because she wouldn't have known to look for him.

I don't fault Ronnie at all for not taking Danny to the hospital. While it was a big risk to not address his wounds as you have no idea how long Danny would last after passing out, going to the hospital would've made him an easy target for Maxie. Maxie already had one doctor in his back pocket, so he would've been untouchable and "made it look like an accident" when he would kill Danny. In Ronnie's mind, going to her hideaway was her best shot at saving him and giving them both enough time to recover. Danny was in no position to function so quickly after losing blood. We even get a cinematic shot that once they make it to her hiding place, he's sweating bullets and is so dizzy that he can't even see straight before passing out again.

After waking up, Danny realizes that Ronnie saved his life. They fool around for a while and at this point you just know that she's going to die. Every scene where she's talking about Maxie's abusive nature, you know that this story isn't going to end well. So I don't mind at all to have what feels like a moment of peace here because it serves a purpose. Ronnie and Danny would never get together even if she did live. She just wanted to know what it was like to have someone give her genuine affection. Even though Danny does feel conflicted, I don't think it's because he genuinely feels attracted to Ronnie. It's because he feels bad that she was in that situation and wants to comfort her.

Of course you have Maxie eventually find them. As confusing as that is, we just have to assume he had people follow her since it would've been very suspicious to have her disappear that long. She did say after that Danny was in and out of consciousness for the past 2 days. You know ahead of time that they couldn't just stay in that shack forever. Maxie with full intent on killing both of them brings a gun and starts to shoot at them. Danny's kindness is once again rewarded in a way as if his mute friend didn't warn him the best he could about Maxie, both him and Ronnie would've died. He even goes as far as to go up to Maxie to try wrestling the gun away. While he did try Ronnie gets shot in the process, but thanks to Danny's friend getting into the scuffle, Maxie fatally shoots himself by accident. Danny might have been saved but it was too late for Ronnie as she dies in his arms happy to know that at least for one brief moment she was loved again.

After Ronnie's tragic demise and Maxie's downfall, Danny is free to go back to the King Creole. Even though we don't know how much time passes, we don't need to for us to figure out that things have gotten better. Normally I would criticize something like that being resolved in a way that the audience doesn't get to see, but that isn't the case in this movie. Danny breaking things off with Nellie so he can keep her safe from Maxie is a justifiable action that she would easily understand. Her agreeing to wait for Danny to recover from the traumatic events shows that she's a level-headed woman. As for his father, Mr. Fisher almost had his son die. That's enough to erase anything that he didn't agree with. Unless he's inhumanly unreasonable, I don't think Danny explaining that if didn't sign with Maxie, actual acts of terrorism would've been committed would result in Mr. Fisher saying that he could've done anything different. Any normal human being would understand that this was a horrible situation that Danny had no way of preventing without completely throwing away his core values.

The bittersweet ending is very well balanced. Danny singing Ronnie's song "As Long As I Have You" makes for a nice tribute. I appreciate that the movie doesn't just time skip to Danny singing a musical number about how great everything is. It would be a severe case of emotional whiplash and would have gone against what the tone of the movie was. Danny went through a traumatic event most people can't even fathom happening. He should be allowed to grieve while also getting closure. Singing Ronnie's song on stage does both as it's making it so her song is heard and never forgotten. That being said, I wish we got to see what happened with Danny's mute friend. Knowing that he was only working for Maxie because he had nowhere else together really makes you wonder what will happen to him now that Maxie's gone. Either way, seeing Danny squint through the dark room as his father steps into the light is so beautiful. It shows that all was forgiven and his father finally approves of what Danny wants to do in life. Danny can finally have peace now that he has a support system who loves him.

This is the most emotionally complex Elvis movie I've seen that perfectly executed its vision. I have been waiting a full year since my Wild In The Country review to talk about why I didn't like Glenn's character arc. Danny is what Glenn tried to be. Danny is that troubled youth who makes bad decisions because there is no good decision to be made. There wasn't a single path Danny could take that didn't involve suffering. Even as far back as Danny sticking up for Ronnie wasn't an obvious choice to make. Sure not getting involved would've meant Danny wouldn't get into it with Maxie, it also would've meant that Ronnie would continue to be abused without ever getting a bone thrown to her. It wasn't until later on that he realized Maxie had an insane amount of power. Based on how Maxie operated, you already know that he's got the entire bureaucracy and law enforcement of New Orleans in his back pocket. Shark's gang being able to do as they please without a significant fear of getting caught under Maxie's command shows how Danny going to the authorities for help is completely off the table.

I know I had some complaints about some scenes not really making sense, but those are so easy to fix that I'm giving this movie my first 10/10. Those plot holes don't take away from the emotional impact of what we saw. The amount of songs felt natural as you can't have Danny working at night clubs without having him sing. The character interactions were perfect as you understand exactly what their motives are and have their actions reflect that. Shark looking like he's 35 doesn't matter either since the movie already introduced him as being an older brother of a boy Danny went to school with. Shark said he smokes and since we know smoking can cause premature wrinkling, I'll give him the benefit that he isn't more than 10 years older than Danny. I highly recommend watching it, but surprisingly to some as the last Elvis movie you watch for the first time. To me having it be first would give you an insanely high expectation for an Elvis movie. This movie best serves as leaving it for last as it perfectly captures why fans always talk about what could've been.

AN: Happy Birthday Elvis and RIP! Also shout out to @vintagepresley for writing a companion review of the book. I usually don't talk about the book when talking about the movie so it's nice to have the opinion of someone who read it. I can't wait for it to come out.

Tagging: @codalysssssworld, @presleysweetheart, @smokeymountainboy, @arrolyn1114, @peaceloveelvis,

@mercsandmonsters, @eapep, @atleastpleasetelephone, @without-him, @lucy114505,

@blighted-star, @rjmartin11, @elvisbdoll, @dragonkingsdaughter, @ifyouloveweedletsgosmoke,

@ilovequeen978, @fuzzymusic94, @halieghhh, @tacozebra051, @hooked-on-elvis,

@lola-1013, @father-of-2cats, @southcarolinawoman, @elvisflowerchild, @elviscinema,

@i-r-i-n-a-a, @jadeeloveselviss, @xanatenshi, and @thelonelyheart.

[sissylittlefeather]

Time for a little brain break! I'll come back to How the Web Was Woven soon!

Lover Doll: A Danny Fisher Story

A/N: I know this is like the least creative name for a Danny Fisher (from King Creole) fic but whatever lol. This is a dirty (and borderline inappropriate oops) little thing I wrote just for the hell of it. Hopefully some of y'all enjoy it. I like to imagine this is where Danny gets his affection for older women 🤭

Warnings: 18+ minors DNI!, inappropriate relationship (BUT EVERYONE IS OF LEGAL AGE), kissing, cussing, fingering, oral sex (f & m receiving), p in v penetrative sex, unprotected sex, swallowing

Word count: ~2.5k

Unfamiliar with Danny? Here ya go:

You were nervous to start teaching in the beginning, but by your third year you'd settled into your position fairly well. At 25, you finally felt like you had enough years between you and your high school students to make your authority legitimate.

And then they transferred Danny Fisher into your class. Danny had struggled in school, so he hadn't graduated when he was supposed to. That meant he was 19 when he sauntered into your math class and sat at the back. His heavily-lidded eyes and flyaway hair were enough to make you swoon, but you tried to look away.

He ignores you for the most part, until you call him by name to answer a question. You're determined to treat him just like any other student, despite the way your stomach flip flops when you look at him.

"Aw, Miss, I don't-" Just then he glances up and makes eye contact with you. Your cheeks flush and he loses the second half of his sentence. A couple of seconds pass and you realize what's happening.

"Never mind, Danny. Anyone else know the answer?" Class continues like normal until the bell rings at the end. He's in your last class of the day, so you're prepared to drop into your chair once all the kids leave, but he stays behind.

"Miss, you got a second?"

"Sure, Danny. What do you need?" You ask, heart in your throat.

"I didn't know teachers could be so young."

"Oh. Well, yes, I suppose."

"And pretty." You feel the blush rise in your cheeks again.

"Did you have a question?" He seems to be searching for something he can ask.

"Can you help me with those equations from earlier?" He smiles and his dimple catches you completely off guard. Then, he sits down at a desk in the front of the room and opens his math textbook.

"Oh, sure, Danny." Without thinking, you lean over the desk to see which questions he's talking about. When you do, he can see down the front of your dress. He takes a quick peek and then looks away, clearing his throat. You realize what just happened and stand up as quickly as possible. Now it's his turn to blush. He stands up from the desk holding his book in front of his lap, you suspect in an effort to hide himself.

"I have to get to work. We'll have to look at the equations another time." He smiles again and hurries from your room. When the door closes behind him, you can't help but laugh.

******

You continue this way for a month, with him staying after school as often as possible for tutoring. But what starts as a mild flirtation gets stronger and stronger every time.

At one point he accidentally calls you "honey" when he gets frustrated with a question. He instantly apologizes, but you just laugh. Secretly, you love it and wish he would do it again.

You know it's wrong. He's your student. But he's also a grown man and your reaction to him is uncontrollable. You're used to 17-year-old boys who are basically big toddlers. Danny is only two years older than that, but he's worked more hours than you have. Nothing about him feels like a boy.

******

One day, you stand looking out the classroom window while he's at the blackboard. You're feeling particularly sorry for yourself and the situation you're in with him. The attraction is undeniable, but nothing will ever come of it. He notices that you seem sad today, so he puts the chalk down and walks up behind you. He stands close enough for you to feel his breath on your neck. You can tell by the way he stands there that he wants to touch you, to put his arms around your waist or his hands on your hips, but he doesn't. Not yet.

"You alright, Miss y/l/n?" You take a deep breath before answering him. You wish he would touch you.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just..." You turn to face him and he's even closer than you thought. You look up into his face. All he would have to do is lean down a few inches and his lips would be on yours.

"Can I..." His eyes flick down to your mouth. You're just about to tell him yes when he leans in just enough and presses his lips to yours gently. His hands shake a little, but he reaches out and puts them on your hips. He pulls back for a second, checking to make sure you don't want him to stop and then kisses you again, more passionately this time, sliding his hands back behind you and pulling your body in close to his. You break the kiss and pull back away from him.

"Danny, wait. This is wrong."

"Wrong? It doesn't feel wrong?"

"I'm your teacher." You look down at your feet.

"Hey." He tips your chin up with his hand and looks into your eyes. "Listen. You're a woman. I'm a man. This feels right to me. Does it feel right to you?"

"Yes." You nod. "But that doesn't mean it is."

"Y/n... can I call you by your name?" You nod again. "Y/n, you make me feel things I've never felt before. That can't be wrong."

"Oh, yes it can. Surely you know..." Then a thought occurs to you. You look at him with your head cocked to the side. Then, you walk backwards away from him and perch on the edge of your desk.

"Danny, you say I make you feel things you've never felt before. Have you ever been with a woman?" You try to look into his eyes but he avoids you. He looks down and tries to hide the fact that he's blushing.

"No." He answers with a tone of slight annoyance. Then he looks back up into your face. "But that doesn't mean I can't or won't. I want to. I want to be with you."

"Oh, Danny. I'm just not sure that's a good idea. I am your teacher-"

"Then teach me." He wraps himself around you again and kisses you deeply, his tongue sliding into your mouth. "Teach me, please." He whispers when he pulls back from the kiss.

Your eyes flick between his and you want nothing more than to say yes. Your body is screaming at you to kiss him again and rip his clothes off. You know it's wrong, but you're not sure if you care anymore. Can something that feels so right really be wrong?

Finally, you nod and he looks at you eagerly. His hands go to your hips and he pushes against you as he kisses you passionately. He kisses down your neck and reaches behind you to unzip your dress. He pulls the top of your dress down so that you're only in your bra from the waist up. You push his t-shirt up and over his head and off. His chest has the smallest patch of soft hair and you're reminded how young he is. But just when you're about to back out again, he pulls your hips away from the desk and lets your dress fall to the floor at your feet. Now you stand there in nothing but your bra and panties. He takes you in slowly and looks at you hungrily like he might devour you if he could.

You nervously glance at the classroom door. It's closed and you know that by now the building is empty. And then a thought occurs to you.

"Don't you have to be at work soon?"

"No." He responds firmly and dives into a deep kiss, his hands running up and down your body. They tremble slightly, but he hopes you ignore it as he slides them up to hold your breasts. You reach down and feel his hard cock pressing against his jeans. When you touch him, he backs out of the kiss and whimpers a bit.

"Danny, do you know what happens next?" You ask quietly as you stroke him. He grunts and nods.

"Yes, I do."

As if to show you that he does, he slips his fingers, still slightly trembling, under the waistband of your panties and pushes one finger into you. You moan softly as he adds a second finger and pumps them in and out of you slowly.

"Yes, don't stop." You whisper. He nods and keeps working his hand as you close your eyes and continue to stroke him through his pants. After a few more seconds, you use both hands to undo his zipper and push them down his legs. He steps out of them and you look at him in just his underwear with his hand in your panties. He might be 19 and a virgin, but his body is that of a man and it elicits a physical response from you that he can feel with his fingers. He smiles and kisses your shoulder gently.

You reach back and undo your bra, letting it drop to the floor. He stops moving his hand for a second as he takes in your naked breasts. You put your hand back on him and feel his cock twitch. He whimpers again.

"I want to kiss you, but not on your lips."

"Where, then?"

"Everywhere." He looks into your eyes almost pleadingly.

"Then kiss me, Danny." He kisses your mouth once before leaving a trail of hot kisses on your neck down to your chest. He runs his tongue in a circle around one nipple and ghosts his lips across your skin to the other one, pulling it into his mouth gently. But he doesn't stop there. He gets on his knees and kisses down your stomach, pulling his fingers out of you and dragging your panties down your legs. Then, he leans you back against the desk a little and spreads your legs, kissing your center. He leans his forehead against your lower stomach.

"I've never done this before. How do I... what do you...?"

"Just kiss me. With your tongue. Here." You put your finger on your clit and rub it in circles, so he will know what to do. He nods and leans forward again, pressing his mouth to you. He begins to move his tongue over and around your clit and you have to bite your lower lip to keep from crying out.

"Like this?"

"God, yes, don't stop!" He smiles and presses a finger into you again while he licks you. He pumps his finger in and out while he moves his tongue feverishly on your clit. You feel the coil of your orgasm tighten in your belly and he keeps on licking you. The coil snaps and you gasp.

"Yes! Yes! Oh, Danny, yes!" You moan as quietly as you can, while you come hard in his mouth. He feels your walls flutter and pulse around his fingers.

"W-w-was that good?" He looks up at you from his place between your legs and you almost melt.

"Yes!" He smiles and kisses your hip and then stands up, wiping his face with his hand. You push his underwear down and watch his cock bounce free. He closes his eyes and bites his bottom lip when you reach out and palm his dick, sliding his foreskin back.

"You're sure this is what you want, Danny?" His eyes pop open and he looks at you desperately.

"Honey, I've never wanted anything more." He lifts you by the hips and sets you on the desk. You pull his hips in between your legs and line him up with your entrance. He holds you and pushes into you slowly, grunting when he fills you fully. His cock is bigger than you expected and you moan at the sensation of him hitting the most sensitive place inside you. He pulls back and pushes into you again deeply. Then, he picks up the pace a little and starts to slam his hips into you passionately. Your breasts bounce with his rhythm and he leans down and kisses your chest again while he fucks into you.

"Yes, honey, goddamn, that feels good." He puts his hand on the side of your neck and runs his thumb over your lips. His hips pound into yours over and over, his cock sliding in and out of you rhythmically. He looks down at the place where you're connected and groans. The sight of himself moving in and out of you is enough to almost push him over the edge. But you're not finished with him yet.

"Oh, no honey, what're you doing?"

You push him backwards out of you and then around to the chair on the other side of the desk. He falls into the chair and you crawl on top of him, one leg on either side of him, and sink down onto his dick with your hands on his shoulders. "Oh." He moans breathlessly as you begin to bounce on him. His hands go to your breasts, squeezing them gently and teasing your nipples with his thumb and fingers.

"Do you like this, Danny?" You ask, your voice dripping with desire like the sweetest honey. He nods and whimpers, leaning forward to kiss your neck.

"Yes, I love it." He whispers as he nuzzles you just below your ear. You switch to rolling your hips, pushing him deeper and deeper inside you. He puts his hands on your hips while you ride him. "'M bout to come, doll."

You stand up off of him and he whines desperately.

"No..."

But then you get on your knees and put your mouth around his cock and he inhales sharply. You bounce your mouth on him vigorously and then pull all of him into you, letting him hit the back of your throat.

"Oh, fuck, y/n!" He cries out as he comes hard in your mouth and you swallow it down. You lick around the head of his cock one last time and then stand up. He pulls you down into his lap and cups your face in his hand.

"Honey, that was..." You smile and he kisses you softly. He presses his forehead to yours. "Thank you."

You sit there like that naked together for a while before you speak again.

"Danny, we can't tell anyone about this."

"I know. We can do it again sometime, though, right?"

"I don't know. We probably shouldn't have done it this time."

"Shhh." He holds your face again. "Yes, we should've. You mean more to me than just this. I think I'm fallin' for you." You feel the tears gather in your eyes.

"Oh, Danny..."

"I am. So stop sayin' it's wrong." You kiss him again and he holds you tightly. Finally, you stand up and start to gather your clothes, tears falling down your face silently.

"Why're you cryin', doll?" He stands up and you look into his eyes.

"Because I'm falling for you too." He wraps you in his arms again and you cry against his chest. You know that nothing can come from this, but right now, he's yours and you're his.

In this moment, nothing else matters.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Taglist: wasn't sure on some of these, so sorry if I tag you and you didn't want to be tagged!

@ccab @elvisfatass @elvisalltheway101 @aliypop @18lkpeters @dkayfixates @ashtag6887 @your-nanas-house @deniseinmn @joshuntildawn13 @lookingforrainbows @60svintage @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @tacozebra051

[vintagepresley]

Danny Fisher does things to me. 🤭

[seredelgi]

Girl you got him, he’s right there

[hooked-on-elvis]

"King Creole" (1958)

WATCH IT ONLINE HERE [DAILYMOTION.COM]

Wardrobe tests, on set and publicity photo shoot.

Elvis Presley as Danny Fisher; Carolyn Jones as Ronnie, Maxie's mistress; Dolores Hart as Nellie, a five-and-dime employee who falls for Danny; Liliane Montevecchi as Forty Nina, a stripper at the King Creole nightclub; Jan Shepard as Mimi Fisher, Danny's sister.

Elvis as Danny Fisher for King Creole (1958)

[walkinroadkillz]

12 rounds lore -🦡

[hooked-on-elvis]

Some pictures and GIFS (photo shoots and stills) from the "King Creole" period (1958)

I have young lips That want to kiss you Kiss you morning, noon and night

Elvis in King Creole (Dir. Michael Curtiz, 1958)

[bagofpopcorn]

I don’t think anything will ever top this shot in Hot Fuzz

[spextkrr]

robert sean leonard 🤝 leigh whannell

being typecasted and playing the gayest, most pathetic men known to mankind who usually die in the end (there are a few exceptions of course)

[graves-yard]

I’ve recently gotten into Hazbin Hotel so I haven’t been posting it cause ew but I made a couple little ghost boys today so i'll hand those over

[deke-rivers-1957]

Happy Halloween @alienelvisobsession. Here's Elvis as Gomez Addams with his Morticia.

[vintagepresley]

A Stone for Danny Fisher - Book Review

The book that inspired the movie ‘King Creole’ and out of all the movies Elvis had done, that he himself liked. Though the movie is good in its own ways, it is nothing compared to the book. So much so the author of the book did not like the film because of the drastic changes made to it. 

The book opens to a prologue which is where we learn that our narrator for this story is Danny Fisher. We’re introduced to him talking to his son who never got a chance to know him as he stands with his mother and Danny’s family at the cemetery, all of them standing over Danny’s tombstone and laying stones on top of it. Everyone there has their own memories of Danny, everyone except his son. So as Danny speaks to his son and the audience of this book he wants to tell the story of his life from the very first memory and the best memory he could remember.

His story begins June 1st, 1925 in Flatbush, NY. A small neighborhood in Brooklyn at the time. It’s Danny’s eighth birthday and his family is moving into their new house and Danny is so excited telling anyone he can that his father bought this house as a birthday present for him. It was the first time that Danny would have his own room and the first time they had a really nice house. So this day is one that Danny always remembers and this house is one that Danny constantly remembers and comes back to even as an adult. As his family is moving in Danny wants to be of some help to his mother who is cleaning the new house, but she tells him to go play. So, as an eight year old boy his curiosity gets the best of him and he goes exploring in his new neighborhood. There aren’t many houses yet because the neighborhood is still developing and he’s actually one of the first people to move into the new houses. As he’s exploring he hears a dog barking and two other boys talking and he follows the sounds. He comes across two boys around his age standing over a hole where a dog had fallen in and was trying to do its best to get out. The two boys were laughing at the dog. 

Danny approaches asking the two boys if the dog belongs to them and soon things escalate when the boys start asking Danny questions about what church his family is going to. Danny isn’t really sure how to answer because he doesn’t know because his family is jewish. Once he reveals this to the boys, suddenly their demeanor changes and now they’re calling Danny all sorts of names and asking him “Why did you kill jesus?!” Poor Danny is even more confused and starts to cry and soon the older of the two boys pushes Danny down into the hole with the dog. Leaving him all alone and he tries his best to climb along the sides of the wall being sure to take the poor dog with him, but he ends up sliding back down and even when he gets close to the top he ultimately ends up back at the bottom. Now it’s getting dark and poor Danny is getting scared with the rats running around and he starts crying and yelling for his mother. Not too long after that his dad had gotten the police involved and they all were searching for Danny and he’s finally rescued along with the dog that his father allows him to keep and he names her Rexie. That dog and that house would be the two things that mean the absolute world to Danny. 

Five years go by, and it is now Danny’s bar mitzvah and the family is so excited for his transition into a man, but amidst the excitement things aren’t going well financially with the family. His fathers pharmacy business wasn’t doing great and they were losing money daily. But his mother and father did their best not to worry Danny or his sister, but they knew that things weren’t going too great. But everyone hoped that business would pick up real soon. Danny even offers to come and work at his fathers business during the summer time. At first his father isn’t really too keen on the idea, but Danny wants to do anything that he can to help his family, the last thing he would ever want was to lose his house. After more conversation about it his parents agree to let him work with his father for the summer.

In the midst of all of this his next door neighbor Marjorie Ann who is good friends with his sister and two years older than him always bothers him because she knows that he likes her and watches her get dressed from his window but because she always makes him feel funny he gets angry whenever she tries to make a move on him. Even though he hates whenever she teases him and makes him feel the way that she does, he can’t deny that he does really like her. Being thirteen years old he just couldn’t understand the things he was feeling.  Marjorie is quite persistent and eventually ends up being Danny’s first girlfriend, even though he seems a bit reluctant to make her his girlfriend. 

While at school Danny gets into a fight with another kid during gym class and the teacher, Sam Gottkin makes the two of them fight each other since they want to fight so badly and brings them to his office and gets boxing gloves out for them and the two boys start fighting. Sam makes them fight until one of them knocks the other out. Danny wasn��t too sure about this especially since he forgot why he was even mad at the kid to begin with but the other boy starts charging at him and so Danny fights him and Sam is impressed by how well Danny can fight and soon Danny knocks the poor boy out cold. Sam jumps to his feet to pick the boy up and make sure he’s okay, but impressed by Danny’s talents that he soon invites him over to his house so they can practice boxing together. This is where Danny finds out his teacher used to be a professional boxer himself and he’s in awe and intrigued by this that when Sam tells Danny everything they’ll be practicing a few times a week because he believes Danny has the makings of a boxer some day. But before they could get started on the training Sam gets a call when he leaves Danny down in his basement for a moment and the phone rings and rings that Danny decides to pick it up but hearing Sam had also picked it up, it’s a woman, the voice Danny recognizes as the art teacher at his school who was cheating on her husband with Sam and he begs her to come over and she agrees and Danny quickly hangs up the phone before Sam comes back down and tells Danny they’ll have to start training another day. 

A few days later they begin their boxing training and Sam even offers Danny a job for the summer up the Catskills. Danny wants this job more than anything, but remembers he made a promise to work with his dad with the summer down at the Pharmacy. So he promises Sam he’ll speak to his father about the job in the Catskills and when he does his father thinks it’s a great idea, but his mother doesn’t especially since he already made a promise to work with his father. But his father tells Danny to get all the information about the job and he and his mother will talk about it. Danny agrees and the next time he sees Sam he would have all the information. Which soon has both his parents in agreement to let him go up to the catskills for the summer. Danny is over the moon and so excited. He spends the whole summer up there working for Sam at a hotel. 

A couple years go by and Danny is now fifteen years old and he’s been up to Catskills a couple times during the summer and he makes some times $500 to $600 dollars by the end of the summer, which now goes to his parents because over the past couple of years things have gotten really bad with his father’s business. So bad that they were behind on their grocery and milk delivery while Danny was away. But when his mother writes to him she doesn’t ever mention the struggles that are happening back at home, so Danny really has no idea how bad things actually are but he assumes things aren’t so good because of how his father acts at home, he notices how quiet he is and how stressed he always looks. But no one says anything and Danny goes off to the Catskills again to work with Sam. While he is up there this time things are getting far worse at home that his father gets a letter in the mail about his father’s business being shut down and their house being taken away by the bank. It isn’t until Danny gets home that he learns of this news and so begins the next chapter of Danny’s life. Everything he knew, his house, his friends, his school, his job, that was all gone now. The house he swore his father gave to him as a gift for his eighth birthday was being taken away and that’s when reality finally sunk in and Danny realized it was never actually his house. 

And so, the family ends up moving from their nice house in Flatbush to a small apartment building in another part of Brooklyn. Danny hates it already because it smells and the apartment is tiny and he hates the neighborhood especially the other teenagers in the neighborhood. Danny decides to take Rexie out for a walk once they get moved in and as he does Rexie seems a bit frightened by this new neighborhood with its loud sounds and unfamiliar places. A couple of teenagers standing in front of a candy store see Danny trying to calm Rexie and they make a comment about his dog being scared and so a fight breaks out between Danny and this kid that Rexie’s leash falls from his hand and she runs out into the street and before he could get to her in time she’s hit by a car and dies almost instantly, Danny runs to her and picks her up. He’s in complete shock as he holds Rexie in his arms, he can’t believe what just happened and now a newfound anger has stirred inside of Danny. Danny had never really been an angry person before but now something had changed. He tells his parents what happened as soon as they see Rexie and Danny begins to blame his father for this because it’s his fault they lost their house and he storms out after putting Rexie in a small box and he takes the train up to Flatbush to his old house where he buries Rexie in the backyard. He hadn’t cried when she had gotten hit but now as he stood over her he began to cry and he wasn’t sure if you said prayers for dogs, but he stood there and he prayed and eventually got back on the train back home and has he was walking down the street he saw the kid that he got into a fight with when Rexie had run off and he goes over into the shop and tells the kid to meet him outside and so the kid agrees with a smirk on his face and as soon as they get outside the two boys begin to fight and at first Danny wasn’t doing to well but he was remembering the boxing lessons from Sam and what he taught him and so Danny was beating this kid up so much so he knocked his teeth out and he wouldn’t stop until he was being pulled away from the kid by cops and they take him and put him in jail for a a few hours and his father comes to bail him out. His father was furious because he had been gone and he worried his mother to death. This would also be the beginning of the strained relationship between Danny and his father. Danny felt something change within him that he wasn’t the Danny he used to be and that he was someone different, someone who was filled with anger and had he looked at his father he knew that their relationship would never be the same again. 

Five months had gone by and things between Danny and his father were still strained. Sometimes he’d look at his father and think he was looking at a stranger. In the last five months Danny’s father had gotten a job at a local pharmacy and Danny had been making some friends now after getting into that fight five months back with that kid he had gotten a bit of a reputation and respect from the other boys in the neighborhood that now he had his own little gang of friends and they would hang outside the candy shop. They weren’t the best influence for Danny, but he had felt like that in order to make it down here you had to fight and make a buck and that’s what he planned to do. He and his new friends were making a plan to rob the five and ten, two of his friends would start a fight in the store while the others began to steal a few of the items, meanwhile Danny is sitting at the counter ordering a drink and talking to one of the girls that worked there. Her name was Nellie, she was a beautiful italian girl, and she was onto what he and his friends were doing because she had seen it before. Danny was impressed that she figured it out but he knew she wouldn’t tell, something about her told him that she wouldn’t tell. So as his friends are continuing to rob the store Danny is flirting with Nellie and making plans to see her when she finishes her shift later that night. Nellie knew from that moment that she liked Danny, she wasn’t too sure about him but she certainly felt something for him in an instant and soon Danny left the five and ten after his friends got everything they wanted and Danny felt pretty good about himself. He was going to have some money and now had plans to meet a girl later on that night. 

After going to a local peddler to sell the things he and his friends stole from the five and ten they managed to get a good amount of money and Danny split it between the four of them. Soon Danny was already planning how to get even more money and that was robbing the owner of the local pharmacy his father worked at. He didn’t like how the manager Mr. Gold treated his father. There had been a few times he had seen Mr. Gold talking down to his father and his father just cowering before him and it made Danny angry. He watched Mr. Gold for weeks studying his routine and when he would take the money to the bank. Most times he went by himself and sometimes he’d have Danny’s father walking with him. He had hoped that the night they planned to rob Mr. Gold that his father wouldn’t be with him because they would have to try for another day. The day finally came when they were going to jump Mr. Gold and they had it all planned out one of his friends would watch from one corner of the street and his other friend would follow behind Mr. Gold while Danny waited in an alley to jump him. Things went as planned and when Danny hit Mr. Gold over the head with a sap they jump Mr. Gold and take the money, and for a moment they knock him out but then he wakes up when they’re getting ready to run off and he grabs a hold of Danny’s leg and his friends run off leaving him as Mr. Gold yells for help. Danny in a panic and not wanting to be caught or recognized by Mr. Gold kicked him so hard that he heard a bone snap and he ran off anxiously hoping that Mr. Gold didn’t get a look at his face. 

Danny ran home pissed that his friends left him but relieved to have gotten away and he hid the money he had stolen in his room and the next day he had met up with his friends to split the money shorting them a few bucks for leaving him the way that they did. After that Danny decided he wanted to get money in other ways and not robbing people anymore after the close call with Mr. Gold. He found out that Mr. Gold had no idea who had robbed him so he was in the clear and didn’t ruin the chances of his father getting fired for what he did. But now with Mr. Gold in the hospital his father had been left in charge of the place and Danny thought now things would get better and maybe now they would be making enough money to get their old house back in Flatbush. Danny was so excited at the thought of this that he took Nellie out on a date and took her up to Flatbush to show her the house he used to live in. She was confused at first but she could see how much this house meant to Danny and how he longed to live there again. Nellie smiled seeing how happy Danny seemed just talking about it and so she also agreed that Danny would live there once again, that the house would be his someday again. It wasn’t too long after that Danny learned that the pharmacy his father worked out was closing down because they were losing money and now he would be out of a job once again. Danny’s dreams of getting out of that small apartment and back to his old house were now crushed. Danny was angry with himself for dreaming of being in that house again and wondered when he’d grown up and stop wasting time on a child’s dream. He had finally decided he would never get back to the house again and that he was going to have to work to provide for his family and he would. 

Soon Danny had gotten a job as a boxer fighting for watches and then he would sell the watches and get money for it, Nellie’s brother Zep had found the job for him and was in some ways his manager now.  It wasn’t much but it was at least something and his sister Mimi had a job as well. The two of them are doing their best to provide for their family. Danny was hoping that maybe with boxing he could actually make a good amount of money besides fighting for watches. Danny had gotten people interested in him because he was a good fighter and he won every fight he had. So now he got the attention of the guy who ran the fights and he wanted to see Danny and offer him a job downtown no longer fighting for watches, but fighting for glory as he put it. They would train Danny so he could build a reputation for himself and start to make actual money from his fights. Danny didn’t really seem interested at first until an old friend of his walked in and it was Sam Gottkin, he would be the one training Danny and Danny was filled with excitement when he saw Sam and changed his tune and agreed to fight downtown now and be trained to be an actual fighter. His parents wouldn’t like this, his mother always worried when he had fights and his father just got angry and would call Danny a killer and the devil and how he’s no son of his for doing this sort of work. Especially when he was fighting for the big time and he was all in the papers anytime he won his fights, he would always win his fights. It only made his father angrier reading about his son in the papers. He kept warning Danny that if he didn’t stop with these fights that he would no longer be welcomed in the house. But Danny couldn’t stop and he tried to explain that to his father. He was bringing in good money and taking care of them and he just wouldn’t understand. 

Danny was doing so well with his fights that he had a big fight coming up at Madison Square Garden and he was going to get paid pretty well for this. Now he had caught the eye of Maxie Fields and his old friend who used to rob the five and ten with him was now working for Maxie and he saw Danny and told him Maxie wanted to talk to him. Danny didn’t say no because he knew of Maxie and how he ran things in the neighborhood so reluctantly went up to see him. Maxie had money on the other fighter who was going to be fighting Danny and he wanted Danny to throw the fight and had offered him a good amount of money for it. Even offering a girl who lived with him Ronnie and when she walked out Danny couldn’t stop staring at her but said no to his offer of being able to spend a night with Ronnie. Maxie laughed at that but liked Danny. But Danny agreed to throwing the fight because Maxie was offering a thousand dollars and Danny knew that money would help his family. Especially since he learned that his father needed five hundred dollars to be able to open up his own pharmacy in the town and he wanted to help his father. So he agreed and he got half of the money up front and the other half he would get after the fight. Maxie warned him not to cross him. 

Maxie even made Danny come up to his place again and this time Ronnie was just there and had told him that Maxie wanted her to be alone with him and Danny didn’t have time for that but she insisted or he’d get mad. She even tried to convince Danny not to go through with the deal he had made with Maxie but Danny wouldn’t listen and he agreed to stay so she wouldn’t get in trouble with Maxie and while he stayed for about an half an hour he got to know Ronnie a bit more and found out that her real name was actually Sarah, that would be the only name of hers he could ever remember. 

The fight at Madison Square Garden was coming up and he tried to invite his parents but they refused to go and his father warned him again if he does this fight he will not be welcomed in the house. He forced Danny to leave his house key on the kitchen table. Danny couldn’t believe his father was acting this way, but he hoped once he saw the money he had earned that it would change his tune about this. So Danny went off to do the fight and while in the middle of fighting this guy he was supposed to lose to he was making the fight to easy for Danny, he could’ve knocked this guy out at any moment but he knew he had to be the one to lose, but as the fight went on Danny had started to changed his mind because winning this fight would get him into the papers and would turn him into a real fighter and if he lost this fight he’d be a nobody again and for a moment he was find with that idea, but then as the fight went on he just couldn’t lose and he was willing to risk whatever was going to come with Maxie who was in the crowd watching the fight and before Danny had realized what was going on he had knocked the other fighter out and he had won and though he was happy he was also nervous about what Maxie Fields might do. He knew he wouldn’t get the other five hundred dollars so he tried to hurry home to give his father the other half that he had. But as he was walking home he sensed that he was being followed and he was right his old friend another guy who worked for Maxie had been following him and now they were chasing into a dark alley and they get into a fight, Danny manages to knock the other guy and he and his old pal were now fighting and he taken a switch blade and had stabbed Danny in the hand and the two of them continue to fight until Danny had somehow taken the knife from him and stabbing him, he wasn’t sure if he had killed the two guys, but in the moment he didn’t care and had hoped they were dead and now he was bleeding and beaten as he was running home and he had remember that his father had taken his key and as hes knocking on the door he could see shadows beneath the door and the sound of his mother crying as he pleaded to be let back into the house and his father yelling for him to go away and then the light went out and the house fell silent and now Danny had no place to go and he walked back downstairs, defeated and bleeding out and soon everything was becoming a blur and he hears a car coming up and stopping in front of him he’s thinking it’s more of Maxie’s guys and so he finds a pencil in his pocket and picks up some paper from the ground has he ducks back into the alley of his apartment and he wraps the five hundred dollars in the paper and writes a note to his mother and he puts the money in their mailbox. He knew his mother would get it when she would check the mail the next day. 

 Danny walked back out and the person in the car was Sarah and she was screaming his name and helping him into the car. He was telling her had no place to go and so she helps Danny and takes him down to Coney Island where she has a brother that she visits once a week named Ben. He agrees to help Danny and allows him to stay there without really knowing what had happened. He doesn’t even know what his sister actually did and who Maxie Fields actually was to her. Just that she made good money and she used that money to help provide for her brother who had an accident years ago and he could no longer provide for the two of them and so got a job as a typist but that wasn’t enough money for the two of them and her boss soon offered her a job that makes twenty dollars and she had gone to a party where there were other girls and men and soon she had gotten herself into prostitution, she didn’t want to do this but it was good money for her and her brother even though he had no idea what she was actually doing and never had for years and after going to a few parties she was a professional and that was when she soon met Maxie Fields and had been with him every since and Ben only knows him as her boss. 

Two months would go by since Danny had been down at Coney Island helping Ben with his business on the boardwalk. Sarah would come and visit them once a week. Danny had thought about his family a lot and had missed them and wondered if they had missed him and he would think of Nellie who he loved and wonder what she was doing or if she had missed him. He would dream and sometimes see her face and wished he could see her again, but he knew he couldn’t because of Maxie Fields. Sarah had told him that after a while Maxie had stopped talking about him and assumed Danny had run off someplace else with the money he had given him. She also told him of his friend Sam who was looking for him and had found out from Maxie the deal he had given Danny and he was upset and said that if he did find Danny that Maxie wasn’t allowed to do anything to him until he talked to him first. Sarah tells Danny that his sister Mimi was now engaged to Sam, which had Danny in shock because they didn’t know each other and he was curious how the two of them even met. But that was the reason why Sam wanted no harm done to Danny if he was found. 

Even though Danny missed his family he did have a nice time with Ben and Sarah. He and Sarah spending the night together and even though he loved Nellie, Sarah knew that he would never love her the way he loved his girlfriend, but they ended up spending the night together either way and Danny had some feelings for her and knew that he loved her, but it was a different kind of love and what they had was different. Sarah just wanted to feel something she had never had and probably would never have and Danny was the way for her to get it. So they had gotten close over the course of time he had been there. He even helped Ben’s business earn more money. Soon he was helping out other people on the boardwalk and he ended up getting offered a job to come down to Memphis for a few weeks. The job sounded good and he was interested but he didn’t want to up and leave Ben or Sarah so he would talk to them about it and when he talked to Sarah she seemed a little mad but then she admitted that she was going to be leaving Maxie and heading out west with her brother Ben and they were going to open up their own business out there. Everything was all set now. Danny had agreed to take the job down in Memphis and Sarah and her brother had made their own plans to leave as well.

Two years have gone by now and Danny had been travelling all around and he and the men he worked with were stopped in Philadelphia and all Danny could think about was home and it was all he thought about for the past two years and now more than ever he wanted to go home. He missed his family, but more than anything he missed Nellie. So out of impulse he decided to buy a bus ticket promising the guy he worked for that he would be back the next day. As soon as he got to New York he went to the five and ten that Nellie worked out, assuming she still worked there he waited at the time she would usually get off the last time he was there and he waited patiently for her. He was worried that after the past two years that maybe she had taken up with another man and forgotten all about him. But as the girls came out of the store he suddenly heard her familiar voice and as she was saying goodbye to her friends she looked over and saw a familiar face, it was Danny she was overjoyed seeing him and their reunion was a sweet one. It was as if he had never left and they started back up like they had before even getting dinner at the place they had their first date. It had felt like nothing had changed for Danny and he was so happy to see her. They spent the entire evening together and even got a hotel. The very next morning without even a hesitation the two of them went to the courthouse and got married. 

Once Danny and Nellie were married she wanted them to visit both of their parents. Danny was fine with seeing her parents, but he didn’t want to see his at all. He made up his mind that he didn’t come back for them, but for her. But she insisted they go and see his parents. Especially since now his sister was married to Sam Gottkin now known as Sam Gordon and they had a son and another baby on the way. Danny reluctantly agreed to go see his family. Now because of Sam and his new business he had lots of money and Danny’s parents lived in a nice area now and Mimi and Sam lived in a pretty rich neighborhood. His parents had dinner every friday over Mimi and Sam’s house, so that’s where Nellie and Danny went. The reunion was one he expected it to be. His mother crying over seeing her baby again, and his father not saying a word or showing any sort of emotion that he even missed Danny. Mimi being just as emotional as his mother and being the only one who cared to ask where he had been and what he had been doing for the past two years and what happened to him. Danny thought he would feel different seeing his family. He thought he would be more emotional seeing them. But he felt nothing. He was different after being alone for two years and felt like a different Danny once again. The one his mother was crying over had been long gone. Soon Danny was ready to leave saying goodbye to his sister and mother, and even Sam. But not saying a word or even giving a glance to his father as he and Nellie left. 

Danny and Nellie soon got a place of their own though they didn’t have much money, Nellie still had her job, but Danny had no job and was in the process of looking for one. As he goes out to look for a job he runs into his old, Maxie Field’s errand boy and he forces Danny into a car telling him Maxie wants to see him. Danny not wanting any trouble especially after what he did two years ago to Maxie he goes along putting up no fight. As soon as he’s in front of Maxie, he doesn’t miss a chance to punch Danny in the face and then teases him about one of his friends being back and soon he calls Ronnie aka Sarah to come out. Danny was shocked to see she was back in town as well and he assumed maybe something had happened to her brother Ben. The two of them share an awkward smile as they say hello to each other. Then Maxie proclaiming no one can stay away from Maxie Fields and then yelling for Danny to get out and that he better stay out of his way from now on. Danny didn’t make a fuss and he nodded and headed out. He continued trying to look for jobs that evening but there was no luck. It was going to be hard to find a job given this being the era of the great depression, most families being on government relief now which Danny did not want to get on, but Nellie feared they may have to. 

A few more years go by, now Danny is working odd jobs, and Nellie has now stopped working because she had given birth to their daughter Vickie. Things were even more tight now that they had a child that they had no choice but to get on government relief and Danny absolutely hated it and he tried to go to Sam to ask for a job, he was working in the empire state building now and Danny figured he could maybe make some good money. But Sam turned him away assuming he was asking for a hand out. But he wasn't, he was just looking for a job. He ends up getting one down at a store but because he and Nellie are on government relief he can’t work more than a few hours anything more and they could be in trouble. 

They’re daughter Vickie had gotten sick and they had gotten a doctor in to check on her but because they were on government relief the doctor tried them like they weren’t good enough and so he said the baby was fine and that she just had a little cold. But as the days went on the baby began to get worse and this time they got another doctor to come who said she had a fever and they did everything that they could to make sure she was okay, but it seemed that it was too late because she had gotten worse. Things had gotten so bad that she was coughing more than usual and it seemed like it wouldn’t stop and then suddenly she wasn’t breathing properly and Danny was doing everything he could to save her but Vickie ends up dying in his arms and Nellie is completely devastated. The next day with some extra money Danny had made working extra hours they paid to have the church bury her. Nellie would never be the same after that. At least not for sometime. She blamed herself for what happened and Danny tried to do everything he could to help her. But he too was devastated with the death of their daughter and would never be the same. 

Now with the two of them mourning their daughter, Danny hadn’t been to work in five days and when he did show up to his job he had already been replaced and his boss telling him he should’ve called. When Danny tells him what happens he feels sorry for him but he no longer had any work for him and the government relief program had found out that Danny had been working extra hours that he shouldn’t have and they had gotten kicked off relief. Now Danny was desperate to get a job because he didn’t know how he would take care of Nellie and himself and so he goes to see Sam once again and this time he blackmails him into giving him a job. He knew something about Sam and it was that despite the money and the face that he was married to Danny’s sister, he was still up to his old tricks cheating on Mimi with his secretary and Danny had caught him in the office with her and used that against Sam to force him into giving him a job or he would tell Mimi. Sam, now backed into a corner, gives him a job. The job was managing the concessions and the cigarette machines that Sam had at different businesses and subway stations and after three years of doing that Danny had gotten a promotion and was making even more money now and the Cigarette machines became solely his business because had made connections while the war was going on to get cigarettes. He was making good money and now Nellie had been working at a plant since the war started. Danny had wanted her to quit but she refused because she felt she had nothing else to do and if she wasn’t working she’d be sitting around all day thinking about Vickie. 

As time goes on Danny is now twenty seven years old.. Now not only was he working the cigarette business he was also looking into having coke machines placed in subway stations after talking to Sam about it who knew they’d make great money from it. The only thing is that they had to get Maxie Fields involved because Mario, the man they were going to do business with, worked with Maxie so they had to go through him. Danny didn’t like that one bit. Especially after they had left doing their business deal with Mario and Maxie made Danny ride home with him. Suggesting that if something happened to Sam that Danny would then be in charge of Sam’s entire business on the count of his sister. Maxie suggested that if Danny wanted to get rid of Sam that he would help. That only made Danny mad and he didn’t want to hear anymore.

But even with Maxie Fields in on their business things were still going really well for Danny and Nellie. She had surprised him by announcing that she was pregnant again. Something Danny feared would never happened again because of how scared Nellie was of getting pregnant again after Vickie, but the two of them were excited about this new baby and Danny thought it would be time for the two of them to finally move into a new place because they were still living in the same apartment they moved into when they were first married. Nellie didn’t want to because she feared that because things were good now there was a possibility of things going wrong and them not having money. But Danny convinced her that things will be good because he had good business going so the two of them went apartment hunting but there were no apartments and Danny insisted that they get a house and he knew exactly what house he wanted to buy. His old house. The house that was given to him on his eighth birthday and the house that was taken away from when he was fifteen, the house he longed to be back at since he was a kid. Finally he had enough money to buy the house himself. He finally was going back home. The place he longed and dreamt about for so many years. 

Nellie didn’t know how to feel about Danny buying this house; she felt something bad was going to happen and she continued to tell Danny this repeatedly, even telling him that they shouldn’t buy the house. That maybe there was a reason he wasn’t meant to be back at this house. But Danny tried to calm her worries telling her that getting this house was a good thing and that nothing bad was going to happen and as much as Nellie wanted to believe him she just couldn’t. She still had this sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. But she knew how much this house meant to Danny. So, they bought the house and they were going to be moving in just a few weeks. Danny was over the moon and when his parents found out he bought his old house his mother was overjoyed and cried, she cried because Danny was finally going home. His father was too in shock to speak but he too was happy for Danny and he felt that the issues between him and his son had maybe disappeared and he was ready to fix their relationship. Nothing in the past that happened mattered before and he would always be making up for his sins. 

The day before Nellie and Danny were due to move into their house Danny had gotten a phone call about some business up in Buffalo, NY and how someone wanted to sell him a truck load of cigarettes for nine grand. It was a deal that Danny couldn’t pass up. So he went to Sam to see if he would be in on the business and maybe give him the money to get the truck load and after some convincing Sam was in and had given Danny the money he needed all in cash. Danny called Nellie up telling her he would be home late, probably the next day and yet again her worries sank in that something was going to happen to him especially since he was doing this the day before they were set to move into their new house. But Danny tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But she was upset with him and hung up on him. He wanted to call her back but he had to attend to his business and they were already calling his flight to Buffalo and Danny was off. 

While Buffalo Danny checks into his hotel and leaves the big envelope of money with the front desk who puts it into a safe for him and he meets up with the men he’s doing business with and everything seems to be going well but Danny was beginning to have a bad feeling, but assumed he was just catching that from Nellie and her worries. Once Danny had talked things out with the men he wanted to see the goods first before he handed over the money and they agreed as long he brought the money with him and so he went to get the money back from the front desk and he headed out to a car with the men. As they’re driving Danny is still getting a bad feeling and suddenly the car comes to a stop and one of the guys pulls a gun out on him taking the money and Danny realizes he had been tricked and the guys beat him up and practically leave him for dead on the sidewalk. He didn’t know how he was going to explain this to Sam who had loaned him the money. Danny passes out and as money comes a man stops to help him and he doesn’t really say what happens to him but that he had to get back to the city because he and Nellie were supposed to move today and the man was going to the city and agreed to give him a ride. 

Once Danny had gotten back to the city he appreciated how kind the older man was to give him a ride and Danny reflects on the fact that a complete stranger can be kinder to you than someone you know. As soon as he gets dropped off he heads up to the apartment where a man in the hallway tells him his wife had already left. His brother in law, Sam had come to help Nellie and had left a message for the man to give Danny, telling him Sam wanted to see him as soon as he was back. So before Danny headed up to the house in Flatbush he went to see Sam in his office. Sam was furious when he saw Danny, he assumed he had run off with the money he had given him and left town. Danny tries to explain to him what had happened and Sam flips because they had lost out so much money. He gets so mad that he wishes he did business with Maxie Fields instead of Danny and now he was taking Danny’s cigarette business because of what happened and now Danny was pissed. He left Sam’s office and he was thinking about what Maxie had talked to him about not too long ago about something happening to Sam and Danny being the one to take over the business and he thought about it some more and decided to go make a deal with Maxie Fields about getting rid of Sam. 

Danny goes to see Maxie and they sit down together and he mentions what they talked about and how he wants to go through with it. He was so mad at Sam he was willing to let Maxie get rid of him so that he can take over his business and give it to Maxie Fields. Ronnie is in the other room when she overhears this getting the two of them drinks and when she comes back she begs Danny not to do that because Sam is his friend and just before she was going to say something else Maxie yells for her to get out. Danny and Maxie make their deal and Maxie would personally be the one to take Sam out. He also warns Danny that there’s no backing out of this time and that if he did it would mean trouble for him. Danny agrees and everything is set in motion when he leaves. 

Danny finally heads up to Flatbush to their new house, Danny’s house his family and Nellie so worried about him since Nellie hadn’t heard from him since he left for Buffalo and when he walked they were so relieved to see him and Nellie is at the top of the steps in tears when she sees Danny, she was shook with worry for him because she still felt something was going to happen to him as she went to step down the stairs she faints and Danny runs to catch her as she falls. His family calls a doctor and soon they’re all at the hospital.. Danny, Nellie, his parents, her parents, Mimi and Sam. Everyone worried for her and their unborn baby. The doctor comes out and tells them that Nellie is stable and that the baby had been born prematurely, but needed a blood transfusion to survive but the baby had a rare blood type so they would test all of the family in hopes of saving the baby, if not they would have to call for someone who did have the blood type. Everyone gets tested and it turns out Sam has the same rare blood type to save the baby and he agrees to be of help. They wait patiently until the doctor finally comes back out again delivering the good news that his son would survive! The family was overjoyed and his mother and Nellie’s mother in tears. Danny gets to finally see Nellie and as he’s on the way to see her he gets a small glimpse of his son. He’s tiny and cute as Danny describes him and he Nellie finally have a moment together thanking god for saving her and their son and then he lets Nellie rests and he goes back out to the waiting room with their family and his father pulls him aside to congratulate him on his son and giving him advice. He was so proud of Danny that he made a toast wishing nothing but health for Danny and his family and thanking Sam for being the reason he had made up with Danny and making him see how wrong he was for the way he had treated his son long ago.

Danny looks at his father confused and he explains to Danny that it was Sam who had made him realize what a fool he had been and it was Sam who made him fix their relationship. Danny is in a bit of shock not only did Sam help repair Danny’s relationship with his father he also was the reason his son’s life was saved. Now he was feeling nothing but gratitude at Sam. Then suddenly he remembered the deal he had made with Maxie about getting rid of Sam and he hurried to a pay phone. He thought maybe if he spoke to Maxie they could call it off and forget the entire thing. He called Maxie’s house and someone picked up it was Ronnie and when Danny said who he was she was crying Danny’s name immediately begging for him to stop this to not have Maxie hurt Sam. She goes on to say Sam was the only friend he ever had and that Sam was the one that had talked Maxie into laying off Danny after the boxing match mess and why he was able to come back to New York years ago and no harm had come to him. Sam swore to kill Maxie if he had laid a hand on Danny. Danny was silent on the other end for a moment. This whole time he thought it was Ronnie the reason why he had no trouble with Maxie when he had returned to the city. But it was Sam and he felt even worse about what he was about to have happen to Sam. Ronnie tells Danny that Maxie had talked about going up to Brooklyn where he knew Sam would be, meaning Maxie was on his way to follow through on their plan. Maxie was probably waiting for Sam at Danny’s house. Danny had to stop this immediately. He hangs up the phone with Ronnie and goes over to Sam asking to borrow his car making up an excuse that he had to grab some clothes for Nellie and Sam agrees to let him take the car, the two of them sharing a moment. Danny looked at him with a warm smile and in the moment he realized he had loved Sam. He was everything Danny had always wanted to be and that’s the way it always was. In everything he did he tried to be like Sam. As Sam hands him the keys, Danny thanks him, thanks him for everything he had done for him. 

As Danny is on his way out of the hospital his father stops him telling him to drive carefully and how they wouldn’t want anything happening to him. Danny smiles as he looks at him and tells him nothing will happen to him and if it did.. He had no regrets, he’s had everything there is to have in life. He’ll have no complaints, no kicks coming. His father nods at him but still tells him to be careful and Danny heads out to Sam’s car and drives back to his house. As he’s driving he spots a car driving close behind him and recognizes the driver, his old pal who had been working with Maxie all these years now. Danny speeds up now and the car behind him also speeds up. Then he slows down and the car behind slows down as well and then speeds up to drive beside him and Danny yells out the car trying to get him to stop and call everything off. But his friend didn’t hear, the cars continued to speed up beside one another. He remembers what Maxie had said, that there was no backing out of this. Then suddenly he sees Maxie in the backseat and he realizes there was no stopping this so now Danny is speeding up even more the steering wheel is shaking and he’s trying to gain control of it. He was getting closer to his street he could see his house on the corner so he kept going but the wheels of the car was locking up and he could see his buddy in the other car his eyes widen with fright and as Danny turns the wheel once more to get to his street suddenly sparks were blazing from the car but he didn’t care he was going home. Suddenly the car was soaring through the air and Danny takes a deep breath bracing himself for the crash. It never came. 

Suddenly, Danny is taken back to when he was eight years old and the memory of him getting out of the van after pulling up to their new house in Flatbush. It was daylight, bright daylight. Danny couldn’t understand what was happening because he was back at the beginning of his memories and suddenly he was back to the current moment he remembers the steering wheel shattering between his hands and then the next moment he was flying crazily into darkness. Within that darkness there was someone calling his name over and over. Danny tried to not listen to this voice calling to him and as he fought against it he could feel the pain in his body. The voice now asks Danny, “why do you fight me, Danny Fisher? I only come to give you rest.” Danny, reluctant and continuing to fight it, pleads that he does not want rest. He wants to live. The echo of the voice responding, “But to live is to suffer, Danny Fisher.” But Danny continues to plead to live because there was so much he had to do. The voice reminding him what he had told his father right before he had left the hospital.. That he had no regrets, that he had done everything there is to be had in life. But Danny is still repeating he must live, he has to live for Nellie because she couldn’t go on without him. He had to live for his son, his son who needed him.

The same voice responds, “You don’t believe that, Danny Fisher. For surely you must know life does not cease to exist in others for any man.” Danny pleads again.. “Then I want to live for myself! To feel the firm soft earth beneath my feet, to taste the sweetness in my wife’s body, to take pleasure in the growing of my son.” But the voice explains.. “If you live, Danny Fisher, you will do none of those things. The body you once inhabited is smashed beyond repair. You will not see, you will not feel, you will not taste. You will be but a shell that remains a living organism, a constant burden and agony to those you love.”  Danny screams this time, “But I want to live!” as he continued to fight against the pain in his body, against the voice that beckoned him. Suddenly he was back in the moment of the crash he could see himself lying on the ground, his body torn, twisted and shapeless. He realizes this is how people would remember him. The very sight of seeing himself like that and he closed his tear filled eyes as he turned away. Now the voice spoke again to him. “Now, Danny Fisher, will you let me help you?” Danny finally agrees, his life filled with nothing but bargains and now he has one more bargain left. He agreed to let the voice, the darkness, help him as long as it made his body whole again so that his loved ones do not turn away from him in horror. The voice agrees. 

At the moment Danny was ready. Suddenly Danny could feel the warmth surrounding him and the voice speaking once again. “Rest then, Danny Fisher. Give yourself up to the quiet, peaceful dark and do not be afraid. It’s just like going to sleep.” Danny had reached out toward the dark, it was friendly, and a loving kind of dark. He had found warmth within it and love. It was just like going to sleep. The dark had rolled around him in swirling gentle clouds. The memory of any pain was now far and distant and even that memory had gone. It was then that Danny had realized he had never known peace before. He was content. His story now ends October 3, 1944. 

We are now at the epilogue of our story, back at the very beginning where our narrator Danny is still speaking to his son, to the audience and his family still standing over his grave, his son quickly putting a stone on top of it and thinking about his father Danny Fisher, he has his name, but he never met him, he has no shape or image in his mind. He’s nothing but a word to him. A picture and the words on other’s lips. He had never seen his father, but Danny had seen him once, very brief the day he was born. As Danny’s family still stands over his grave, his son pointing at the words on the tombstone and his mother, Nellie reading the words to him. Danny, our narrator continues to speak to his son. “Listen carefully to them, my son. Are they not true?” 

To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.

**

This book was one of the most well written, emotional books I've read. I've talked about how much I loved and enjoyed this book. The ending always makes me cry and it was making me cry as I was typing it out. This is such a wonderful book and I really recommend anyone to read it who loves the movie King Creole. Because I've talked about this before when I first read the book about how Danny Fisher in the book reminds me so much of Elvis. Just so much about Danny's personality reminded me so much of him. The way he just would do anything to provide for his family, how he worked hard to not be poor and to give the best to those around him. The relationships he had with people in his life. It's so so good and I just wish that this book got to be made into the movie that it deserved. But of course with Elvis going into the army at the time and the Colonel wanting him to sing and his movies not being so violent and serious because of course we wanted the audiences to enjoy it because it was an Elvis movie. That I feel like those reasons were why we didn't get this version put onto screen. I love King Creole because it's where Elvis's acting shines through the best and the story was good. But this could've been great. This could've been everything Elvis was looking for when it came to the actor he wanted to become. This role was perfect for him and we got something entirely different. I do hope that someday this movie is made so we can get it done the right way. But I'll always long for this done with Elvis. It's as if the author wrote this book with Elvis in mind which is impossible, I know because it was published in 1951. But it seems like it was meant for him. Please read the book if you can! You won't regret it. It's a 10/10 for me.

If you read this long ass review, thank you! Love ya besties.

I'm not sure who to tag so I'll just tag @deke-rivers-1957

[seredelgi]

Elvis Presley and Jocelyn Lane in “Tickle me” (1965)

[secondhello]

Oc pride parade

[jennifermarie98]

I love this Gif just a mom loves her kids more than pizza ❤️

[daily-dose-of-danno]

Season 1, Episode 2 - Parental Bonding