Occasionally a film comes along with a title so coincidentally apposite that it makes its own joke. Stay Away, Joe indeed. Stay away, everybody.

Stay Away, Joe comes in at the tail end of Elvis Presley’s 13-year career as a movie star; it his 26th of 31 dramatic roles. At this stage of the process film studios are simply throwing concepts at Presley to see if they stick with his fans. Later in 1968 he would play a romantic NASCAR driver in Speedway, as well as a romantic photojournalist in Live a Little, Love a Little, but in Stay Away, Joe he plays romantic rodeo rider Joe Lightcloud. Joe is a native American living on a Navajo reservation: that means Elvis is made-up with a liberal layer of brownface. It is quite shockingly racist.

Now we can argue time and time again about historical context – after all, the film was made in 1968 and not 2026 – but no matter how it was intended at the time, any viewers coming to it now will be faced with a near insurmountable level of racism to negotiate. It is not just Presley, of course: the film’s entire lead cast are decked out in Native American make-up, including screen icon Burgess Meredith (Batman, Rocky) and Katy Jurado. The screenplay, by Michael A. Hoey and an uncredited Burt Kennedy, portrays them as spirited and lawless. Peter Tewksbury’s direction emphasises slapstick and farce. It is intended as a comedy, but even putting the brownface elements aside it simply is not at all funny. Noisy, yes. Busy, certainly. A comedy that does not make its audience laugh, however, is dead in the water.

One can usually rely on one or two musical performances to enliven the dullest of Presley vehicle, but the songs here are charmless and dull. It seems likely that someone in MGM felt the same, as in an unusual move no soundtrack album for Stay Away, Joe was ever released. A compilation CD included them in 1994, long after Presley’s death. One would have to argue it was for the completists only.

The film’s origins lie in a 1958 Broadway musical titled Whoop-Up. That production lasted 56 performances before it was cancelled. It is hard to imagine Stay Away, Joe was ever going to fare much better. Weirdly, the film fails to use any of the musical’s songs. Instead all new ones were written by Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman, who had already contributed numerous works to earlier Elvis movies.

There is an innate charm to Elvis Presley, which helped sustain his phenomenally successful career as a singer and a screen heartthrob, but in films like these that charm is crudely blocked or misdirected. It is always a shame: at their best, the Elvis films could be a breezy, enjoyable diversion. At their worst, you get films like this or 1965’s Harum Scarum – awfully dull, comedically misguided, and crushingly offensive to watch.