Production
After numerous delays, principal photography on Clambake began on March 22, 1967. As Presley began the last decade of his life, Clambake was the last film for which he was able to demand and receive a $1,000,000 salary. The relative lackluster box office performance of this movie, combined with his desire to do more serious, less commercial films, meant that studios were no longer willing to guarantee him a seven figure paycheck for his performance.
In her 1985 book Elvis and Me, Priscilla Presley writes that by the time filming was to begin on Clambake, Elvis's growing distress with the quality of his films led to a despondency accompanied by overeating that saw his weight balloon from his normal 170 lb (77 kg) to 200 lb (91 kg). A movie studio executive ordered him to lose the weight in a hurry, marking the introduction of diet pills to his already excessive regimen of medications.
During this time, Presley was growing increasingly interested in religious studies and spirituality, and reading a great deal on the subjects. Colonel Tom Parker felt these pursuits were distracting Elvis from his performance, and while he ordered the singer to not read any books while the film was being shot, there is no evidence that Presley complied with the directive.
Production was halted for nearly two weeks in the middle of filming when Elvis fell and hit his head in the mansion he was living in during the shooting, resulting in a mild concussion.
Although set in Florida, only some second unit stock footage was shot there. Virtually the entire film was shot in southern California (resulting in the scene with the sun seemingly setting over the ocean in the east). Several exterior "Florida" scenes also have very conspicuous California mountains in the background. The boats in the boat garage have registration numbers starting with "CF" (California) and not "FL" (Florida).
Read more about this topic: Clambake
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—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)
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—John Dewey (1859–1952)
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—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)