Get a good look at the King through photos: In Focus: Elvis Presley | Elvis in Film

More on Elvis from MSNBC: Roots and Influences

With the death of Elvis Presley marking its 30th anniversary Aug. 16, the long shadow of rock 'n' roll's most enduring icon is only lengthening: This summer brings a wave of reissued DVDs, a new album of Presley's Las Vegas performances and a gala Elvis Week planned in Memphis, Tenn. To provide a fitting look at the artist, we asked MSN's DVD maven and confessed King loyalist, Sean Axmaker, to sift through Presley's long list of theatrical movies and available live performance sets to give us the best of Elvis.

On Film

Elvis Presley made more than 30 feature films between 1956's "Love Me Tender" (playing support to second-rate leading man Richard Egan) and 1969's "Change of Habit" (playing a hip inner-city doctor who teams up with nun Mary Tyler Moore). He became one of the biggest Hollywood moneymakers, and then became increasingly irrelevant as the '60s wore on and he wore out in increasingly vapid vehicles cranked out with a simple formula: colorful locations, pretty co-stars, a handful of subrate songs. That formula made hits out of "G.I. Blues" and "Blue Hawaii," and Elvis' manager, Tom "the Colonel" Parker, wasn't about to let Elvis' ambitions -- he adored Marlon Brando and wanted to be a new James Dean -- get in the way of profits. But that's not to say Elvis didn't have his moments or his triumphs. Here are his five best films.

5. "Loving You"
For his sophomore film, producer Hal Wallis and the Colonel brought Elvis out of the supporting cast and into an upscale production. The show-biz musical about a country boy with a unique sound, swiveling hips and rocking guitar style so forceful that he breaks strings on every guitar he attacks, is a streamlined and sanitized retake on the story of Elvis, with Lizabeth Scott taking over management duties from Parker with cold cunning and cool sex appeal. The national furor over his immoral music and suggestive moves is overcome in a manner that could only happen in the movies: a spirited reprise of "Got a Lot O' Livin' to Do." It's his first color film and the best set of songs of any of his films, from "Teddy Bear" and the bluesy "Mean Woman Blues" to the Leiber and Stoller numbers "Hot Dog" and the title ballad "Loving You."

4. "Viva Las Vegas"
The barely literate script, where down-on-his-luck race car driver Elvis loses his bankroll in a swimming pool stunt and is lured off course to pursue a girl, is as inconsequential as any of his nonsensical featherweight musicals. But with MGM musical specialist George Sidney at the helm, giving even the silliest numbers a dynamic missing from his other '60s songfests, and Ann-Margret sparring with the King as his greatest spitfire of a romantic co-star ever, it's easily the masterpiece of those disposable productions he knocked out with alarming speed. It's all color and glamour and sexy fun. Elvis sings "Come On, Everybody" and makes Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" all his own while sex kitten Ann-Margret whips up a storm with her TNT-packed go-go moves. "Colonel" Tom Parker made sure a co-star never again made Elvis work for the spotlight in one of his movies.

3. "Jailhouse Rock"
Elvis delivered his definitive screen appearance in this budget-minded black-and-white production, a dark reflection of the "Loving You" rise to fame. This time around, Elvis' working-class character lands in stir after a bar fight gone bad and emerges surly, hardened and quick-tempered, but with a newfound gift for rocking cultivated by his cell mate (Mickey Shaughnessy), a jailbird version of the Colonel who manipulates the kid into signing an exclusive contract before he's sprung. "It's just the beast in me," he explains to his idealistic new manager and love interest (Judy Tyler). The "Jailhouse Rock" set piece was Elvis' favorite production number and remains his greatest big-screen moment, a dynamic melding of modern dance, Broadway showpiece and choreography designed around Elvis' gyrating energy. He may not be much of an actor, but his attitude and surly anger do the job just fine.

2. "Flaming Star"
Less an "Elvis film" than a Western starring young Presley in a surprisingly well-cast role, this lean frontier drama about race, identity, loyalty and the bonds of family offers one of his most impressive performances. Playing the mixed-race son of a white rancher (John McIntire) and a Kiowa mother (Dolores Del Rio), his fraternal chemistry with Steve Forrest (playing his elder half brother) is so understated it feels natural, and his director, Don Siegel, brings out his character through body language and action, letting his angry silences and physical reactions carry his performance and his character. For the fans, he greases his hair back and flips up his collar for a few scenes and takes his shirt off in the third act, but otherwise the persona is absorbed into his character -- his one song is essentially a family sing-along -- for a quietly effective performance.

1. "King Creole"
With a bold script, a powerful cast (Dean Jagger as his servile father, Walter Matthau as a New Orleans gangster, the surly Vic Morrow as a punk and pre-"Addams Family" Carolyn Jones as a reluctant femme fatale), and one of Hollywood's greatest veterans, Michael Curtiz, to guide him, Elvis rises to the occasion of his fourth feature. He's a natural, more attitude and impulse than complexity and nuance, as he burns through the role of a restless waterfront rebel who finds success playing the Bourbon Street clubs. Elvis is all focus and intent, but he loosens up as he belts out numbers such as "Hard Headed Woman," "Trouble" and the theme song, while his opening tune, a bluesy, lazy duet with a street-seller hawking "Crawfish," sets his character perfectly. Elvis gave his all in his final film before reporting for induction into the Army and it's the singer's own favorite picture. Who am I to argue?

In Performance

Colonel Tom Parker (the colonel rank was not even honorary, merely self-proclaimed) was a cagey promoter when it came to Elvis, launching him as a national phenomenon largely through television appearances and relaunching him more than a decade later (after squandering his talent on increasingly soggy, silly films) in the same medium. His TV performances remain among his definitive appearances.

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