Release Although the film was completed in the early summer of 1967, it was not released in theaters until June 1968. It was a box-office success placing at #40 for the year on the Variety weekly national box office list. The only guitar to be featured in the film is during one of the film's closing scenes, during the performance of "There Ain't Nothing Like A Song", where a sunburst Fender Coronado is used. Soundtrack Reception By 1968, Presley films had long become formulaic. Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that Speedway was "just another Presley movie — which makes no great use at all of one of the most talented, important and durable performers of our time. Music, youth and customs were much changed by Elvis Presley 12 years ago; from the 26 movies he has made since he sang "Heartbreak Hotel" you would never guess it." A review in Variety declared: "Under Norman Taurog's know-how comedy direction even some of the silliness in the Phillip Shuken script gets by as entertainment, but the story lacks the legitimacy of the better Presley starrers. However, with Presley in there swinging in his usual style and his own particular brand of lightness the feature stacks up as an okay entry." Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, writing: "'Speedway' is pleasant, kind, polite, sweet and noble, and if the late show viewers of 1988 will not discover from it what American society was like in the summer of 1968, at least they will discover what it was not like." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "has a script that ran out of gas before Elvis Presley was born. Presley pictures can be unpretentious fun, but this one is both uninspired and too much of an imitation of too many of his previous movies ... There aren't even very many songs to break up developments too predictable to outline here." He thought Nancy Sinatra's one song was "the high point of the picture." Home media Speedway was released to DVD by Warner Home Video on August 7, 2007 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD. See also List of American films of 1968 References External links Review of Speedway by Bill Treadway at DVD Verdict, 3 August 2004. Review of Speedway by Jeff Rosado at digitallyOBSESSED!, 1 August 2004. 1968 films 1960s musical