Stay Away, Joe

Stay Away, Joe is a 1968 comedy-drama western film with musical interludes set in modern times and starring Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith and Joan Blondell. The film was based on the 1953 novel by Dan Cushman, a satirical farce. The movie reached #65 on the Variety weekly national box office chart in 1968. Elvis Presley stars as Native American rodeo rider Joe Lightcloud, a Navajo whose family still lives on the reservation. He returns to the reservation in a white Cadillac convertible with which he proceeds to drive cattle. Joe persuades his Congressman, played by Douglas Henderson to give... him 20 heifers and a prize bull so he and his father, played by Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor Burgess Meredith, can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, then the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend, Bronc Hoverty, played by veteran actor and director L.Q. Jones, who had also appeared in Flaming Star , accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy plumbing and other home improvements for his stepmother, Annie Lightcloud, portrayed by Katy Jurado.
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