The Loved One (1965)

The Loved One (USA, 1965) 120 min B&W DIR: Tony Richardson. PROD: John Calley, Haskell Wexler. SCR: Terry Southern, Christopher Isherwood; based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. MUSIC: John Addison. DOP: Haskell Wexler. EDITORS: Hal Ashby, Brian Smedley-Aston, Antony Gibbs. CAST: Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, Rod Steiger, John Gielgud, Liberace, Dana Andrews, Robert Morley, Milton Berle, Roddy McDowall, Margaret Leighton, Tab Hunter, James Coburn, Barbara Nichols, Paul Williams, Lionel Stander, Bernie Kopell, Ayllene Gibbons, Don Haggerty, Alan Napier. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

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It’s been a minute since I’ve read Evelyn Waugh’s brilliantly sick novel, but this screen adaptation well transposes its mordant tone to a baroque black comedy with “something to offend everyone” – as the ads promised, and for once, delivered. Waugh’s 1948 novel is updated to the Swinging 60s in form and content, as young Englishman Dennis Barlow (Robert Morse) travels to Hollywood to visit his uncle, the painter Sir Francis Hinsley (John Gielgud). Once Hinsley is put to pasture by the studio system, he hangs himself, leaving his nephew to take care of the funeral arrangements.

Dennis goes to the Whispering Glades cemetery and mortuary, and becomes attracted to cosmetician Aimée Thanatogenos (Anjanette Comer), who shares the business motto that preparing the deceased is a heavenly act. This is especially witnessed in the character of embalmer Mr. Joyboy, whose preparation of Hinsley’s body is filmed like he is creating a Michelangelo. The firm is overseen by the Reverend Glenworthy (Jonathan Winters), who is often seen giving orders from a helicopter to overstate his importance next to Godliness. Dennis begins working for Glenworthy’s twin brother Henry (also Jonathan Winters), who was also fired by the studio, and now runs a pet cemetery.

Although the narrative follows Dennis through these different worlds, the soul of the picture eventually belongs to Aimée, who emerges as the tragic figure. She is betrayed by every male character she loves or trusts: Dennis’ poetic verse to woo her is all plagiarized, and his crude practices at the pet cemetery desecrate her “beautiful” approach to death; her love of Joyboy for his dedication to his art doesn’t translate to love of the man, who is revealed as emasculated in a nightmarish dinner scene (that must’ve impressed John Waters) involving his mother, the obese Mrs. Joyboy who gets orgasmic over television food commercials; the almighty columnist Guru Brahmin (Lionel Stander) she seeks for advice to the lovelorn, emerges as a drunken lout who dismisses her.

In The Loved One, people in life, love and death are treated like commodities by big businesses. (Witness the hilarious scene where the minister zooms through a wedding, so the funeral ceremony can begin in the same chapel.) The Reverend is no different from the Hollywood studio brass that considers Hinsley as yesterday’s news; any artistic pretensions are crushed by commerce, and even the military becomes enslaved by the almighty dollar. In that regard, the movie is rather prescient.

Tony Richardson had just won the Oscar for Tom Jones, and had flaunted his power to get this movie made, even if the studio brass would hate it. And likely because he was on a roll in the early 1960s, this film has a huge cast: familiar faces even appear in cameos. Others include Roddy McDowall as a Hollywood mouthpiece, Robert Morley as a member of the local English expatriates who stick together (emblematic of the several little “societies” that exist through the film), Liberace as an undertaker, Dana Andrews as a general, James Coburn as an immigration officer, Milton Berle and Margaret Leighton as a warring couple whose dead pet is delaying their dinner plans, Tab Hunter as a tour guide, Barbara Nichols as the stripper who seduces Dennis (did anyone catch the line “She swallowed” after her scene?), and, of all people, future music star 23-year-old Paul Williams, playing a 13-year-old science whiz kid whose messing around with rockets incites the business plan of shooting corpses into space!

Although the film can be baroque in its presentation, the performances are surprisingly believable – even that of Rod Steiger! Given his reputation for hamming it up, he lends a lot of dignity to Joyboy, even when seen as a mommy’s boy in an apron! In her first film role, Anjanette Comer is very affecting as Aimée, wearing different faces of vulnerability, betrayal, sexual confusion and naiveté: she had promise in taking on difficult, complex roles like Susan Strasberg’s.

Seen today, the film still can shock (Mrs. Joyboy’s eating scenes will make you go vegan), but it now emerges as a necessary stepping stone to the counterculture and the New Hollywood that would transpire in a few years. (It can also be viewed as subversive for giving a substantial Hollywood role to Lionel Stander, after years of blacklist.) The movie is infused with a frankness that was evident in Richardson’s “Kitchen Sink” alma mater, or European art cinema in general. Although the screenplay by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood pushes the envelope on what was deemed filmable in a Hollywood movie back then, this piece of sacrilege is however approached with as much artistry as any of Joyboy’s customers.

With an urgency recalling Richardson’s earlier work (especially The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner), and the brilliant black and white cinematography of Haskell Wexler, the familiar is made to feel larger-than-life, otherworldly: the Whispering Glades scenes are infused with an ethereal beauty to compliment Joyboy’s “heavenly art”. Other moments with anamorphic lenses and quick cutting represent a world going topsy turvy: perhaps most representative in Aimee’s house perched on a Hollywood hill, in danger of sliding into the ravine – characters trying to live within factors beyond their control.

(Viewed on the Warners DVD, picked up for 2 bucks at the Queen Video closeout sale, because it didn’t have a sleeve. Its extras include: a great 15-minute short, including Wexler, Paul Williams, Anjanette Comer, and editor Antony Gibbs; a one-minute trailer for those who are curious how on Earth the studio tried to sell this thing!)