Review: Baz Luhrmann's unruly 'Elvis' shakes up the Cannes Film Festival

CANNES, France — Elvis Presley famously never got the overseas touring career he deserved. He played only three venues outside the U.S., all of them in Canada in 1957, well before reaching peak superstardom. Instead of going international, he remained a fixture of the International Hotel in Las Vegas from 1969 to 1976, performing show after sold-out show until just a year before his death. Keeping Presley tied to Vegas was just one of the many machinations of his ruthlessly exploitative manager, Col. Tom Parker, who, it's now widely believed, was afraid to leave the U.S. after having immigrated there illegally from the Netherlands years earlier.

That sad history is unpacked at some length in "Elvis," Baz Luhrmann's unsurprisingly extravagant new movie about Presley's life, art and career, which had its world premiere Wednesday night at the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival. (Warner Bros. will release