Orion: The Man Who Would Be King

Dir: Jeanie Finlay

2015

****

They say that truth is often stranger than fiction. The story of Orion adds a lot of weight to that particular way of thinking. Jeanie Finlay has a nose for a good story, her films seeming to involve music and the most fascinating of characters. She certainly hit the jackpot with Orion, aka Jimmy Ellis. Jimmy Ellis was an amazing singer and a great performer, the only problem was that he looked and sounded just like Elvis. He didn't want to work as an impersonator, so struggled to have success as an artist in his own right. He toyed with many different images but only found success once Elvis had passed away. Ellis' manager, Colonel Mac Weiman, had taken an idea from a novel written by Gail Brewer-Giorgo that was about a huge rock star who had faked his own death and applied it to his singer. The star in the book was called Orion and he wore a mask. From then on and well into the 80's, Ellis, or Orion, was suspected of being the real Elvis who had faked his own death and had reinvented himself. Finlay's documentary talks to his friends and loved ones and discovers the truth about the man and also raises a few interesting ideas on who he really was as well as who his father may have been. A fascinating and somewhat quirky documentary with a shocking climax, Jeanie Finlay is definitely a documentary film maker to keep an eye on.