Elvis Presley's 9th feature film, Follow That Dream is a 1962 musical comedy directed by Gordon Douglas.
Toby Kwimper (Presley), his father "Pop" (Arthur O Connell) and a bevy of adopted orphans that include pretty 19-year-old Holly Jones (Anne Helm) camp out at a deserted beach next to a highway after their car breaks down. Commissioner H. Arthur King (Alan Hewitt) thinks the family is an eyesore and wants to kick them out, but the governor is charmed when Pop invokes homesteading laws and gives them his blessing. The Kwimpers go about the business of settling permanently at the place, gaining allies such as the banker Endicott (Herbert Rudley), but also enemies such as Alisha Claypoole (Joanna Moore), a social worker enlisted by King, and some gangsters who run a gambling ring.
Tropes:
- A Fool for a Client: The Kwimpers have to go to court so as to not lose their wards. The judge questions where their lawyer is, to which Pop replies he doesn't believe in lawyers, so it falls mainly to Toby to represent his family in court. Things work out for them thanks to Toby's unfailing honesty.
- Not Blood Siblings: Toby's main love interest is Holly, who was adopted by his father at the age of 13 when her parents passed away. From the start, she makes it clear to Toby that she wants him to look at her as a woman. Toby is reluctant, not so much because he views her as a sister (even though he says he does at one point), but because his father taught him his strange ideas about women and he doesn't want to be tied down.
- Running Gag: One of the cousins has a habit of breaking a chocolate bar to share with his twin and "fixing" any unevenness by taking a bite out of the bigger half, then giving the half that was already smaller to begin with to the other one.
- Think Unsexy Thoughts: Toby's go-to method of not getting taken in when a woman is trying to seduce him is to recite multiplication tables.
- Word Association Test:
- Alisha makes use of word association tests, ostensibly in her capacity as a social worker investigating the Kwimpers' case, but really to seduce Toby. She is frustrated with his strange answers.
- The movie exemplifies why word association is not a reliable psychological tool. Alisha is instructed by a judge to submit a written form of the test and unbeknownst to her was given the judge's answers instead of the defendant's. She still psychoanalyzed the answers as revealing a criminal mindset.
