There is something about Elvis Presley movies that keeps catching my attention. It certainly isn’t the talent: Presley is an adequate actor at best, and he typically seems surrounded by a conveyer line of middling ingenues from film to film. It isn’t the writing, which is formulaic and anodyne, or the direction, which seems functional rather than inventive. It might be the music, since each film is inevitably accompanied by a handful of upbeat party tunes or ballads.

Ultimately I think it is the cheerful and predictable nature of Presley’s films that makes them mildly addictive. Nothing will be a challenge – bar some dated social attitudes – and the stakes will remain low. There is a breezy old-fashioned charm at work. Quite simply – and perhaps this is for the best – they do not make them like this any more.

Presley starred in 31 of these films between 1956 and 1969, which represents a punishing schedule by any sensible measure. Speedway, released by MGM in 1968, was his 28th. While Elvis had starred in racing dramas before, Speedway did represent something new: it was a film about NASCAR.

NASCAR, or the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, was founded in 1948 out of the Prohibition-era bootlegger’s community. Its main point of difference was its use of modified production cars, rather than the bespoke vehicles constructed for Formula One and other racing leagues. Over time it would be featured in a number of feature films, including Days of Thunder (1990), , Talladega Nights, and Cars (both 2006), but in 1968 it had not been portrayed by Hollywood at all.

Presley plays championship racer Steve Grayson, who romances the alluring Susan Jacks (Nancy Sinatra) – only to discover she is an agent for the IRS. With his manager Kenny (Bill Bixby) having spent much of his winnings on gambling, Steve is left with no option but to race to repay his debts.

The odd combination of stock car racing and tax debt certainly makes for a strange musical – probably the only one of its kind to include a musical number set inside the IRS. The film’s highlights are pretty much all set within a local dance bar featuring booths made out of cars and go-go dancers in cages. Both Presley and Sinatra get the opportunity to stage energetic songs there: neither can act particularly well, but both are swelling with presence and can sing incredibly.

Bill Bixby acts in a charming fashion, but he is saddled with a poor character who is cheating his friend out of his money and who regularly engages in conduct with young women that would be frowned upon in the 1960s and get him arrested on charges of sexual harassment and assault in the 2020s. He is a bad element blocking the film’s otherwise moderate charms, and quickly becomes tiresome.

The racing scenes are broadly effective for such a tightly budgeted film. The opening titles even feature a rolling cavalcade of real-life racers in guest roles; blink and you’ll miss ’em in the actual film. The film is directed sufficiently but disposably by Presley film regular Norman Taurog.

Speedway is a minor diversion for fans of a particular kind of 1960s pop entertainment. Presley and Sinatra are matched pretty well together, with a lot of charisma and attractiveness. It is far from Elvis at his best, but a long shot from his worst as well.