Your) Teddy Bear" "Loving You" "Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do" "Lonesome Cowboy" "Hot Dog" "Party" Release and reception The film premiered on July 9, 1957, at the Strand Theater in Memphis, opening nationally on July 30. Due to Presley's massive appeal, for the first time, the studio decided to bypass the established first-run theater system. Paramount opted instead for a wide release, sending it to neighborhood theaters in New York, Chicago, and Detroit. This new system was dubbed the "Presley Pattern", which consisted of delivering the product to its direct market by cutting the expenses of premieres in downtown theaters, choosing instead local venues for a wider and more profitable release. Upon its release, it appeared on Variety's National Box Office Survey for four weeks, peaking at number seven. The film grossed a total of US$3.7 million in 1957. While Presley was in the army, the movie was re-released in the summer of 1959. The box office results were not impressive, the film grossing US$74,000. Reviews Variety wrote a favorable review, noting that Presley "shows improvement as an actor ... being surrounded by a capable crew of performers". The New York Times criticized his acting: the review opened "For Paramount's 'Loving You', starring America's favorite hound-dog hollerer ... does just about everything, and little else, to prove that it ain't—isn't". The Los Angeles Times declared it "A furtive step on Presley's part in a screen career". The Michigan Christian Advocate delivered a negative review and called the film "an apologia for Elvis Presley" and considered it "part of the passing American scene" that would "undoubtedly bore many and interest an equal number". On its review, Monthly Film Bulletin qualified Presley's career as "one of the most puzzling and less agreeable aspects of modern popular music". the review declared: "Presley adopts a slurred and husky style of delivery and a series of grotesque body gestures to impose on his otherwise innocuous material a suggestive meaning. ... in 'Loving You' he is allowed more scope and is at times both the cause and sum total of the film's somewhat doubtful entertainment value." Down Beat opened its review mentioning the negative reception of Presley by the press, indicating that while other publications "hotly despised" him, Down Beat was "prepared to dismiss him with a decimating round of punfire". The reviewer, however noted that after watching Loving You, it was "amiss to