less commercial films, meant that studios were no longer willing to guarantee him a million dollars or more for his performance. In her 1985 book Elvis and Me, on which Sandra Harmon collaborated with her, Priscilla Presley writes that by the time filming began on Clambake, Elvis' growing distress with the quality of his films led to a despondency accompanied by overeating that had his weight balloon from his normal 170 lb (77 kg) to 200 lb (91 kg). (Elvis, Albert Goldman's 1981 biography of Presley, corroborates this statement Priscilla made to Harmon.) 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, owing to the involvement of Larry Geller, a hair stylist who later became one of "The Guys" (also called the "Memphis Mafia"), as Presley called his entourage, in his life, Presley was growing increasingly interested in religious studies and spirituality, and was reading a great deal on the subjects. Colonel Tom Parker felt that these pursuits were distracting Elvis from his performance, and he ordered the singer not to read any books while the film was being shot; there is no evidence to indicate that Presley complied with the directive. Production was delayed for two weeks at the beginning of the shoot when Elvis fell and hit his head in his L.A. mansion, resulting in a mild concussion. Although set in Florida, only some second-unit stock footage was shot there - including the prominent use of the Miami Marine Stadium, where the climactic speedboat race was filmed, with California close-ups of Elvis and Bill Bixby cut in. 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. Other bloopers include oil fields in Florida. The boats in the boat garage have registration numbers starting with "CF" (California) and not "FL" (Florida). In Japan, the film was released under the alternate title Blue Miami (rendered in Japanese script), a reference to the earlier Presley film Blue Hawaii. Soundtrack The soundtrack album reached number 40 on the Billboard album chart. Reception The film premiered in October 1967, but did not have a wide release until December. The New York Times''' critic Howard Thompson