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Rating:  - Finally!! LOVED ONE comes out on DVD!!
It's about time!! This film has been OUT OF PRINT IN ALL FORMATS for at least 14 years. That, my friends, is a sin above all sins... This is my all-time favorite movie (and i got good taste babies) and I am DYING to see it on DVD. Let's hope that they spent a bit of time on the quality of the transfer. I've seen videos of this film and it's DARK. As in, you can barely see what's happening in some scenes... I have seen it in the local revival house (new beverly, i love you) and it looked fine. I am sad that they haven't gone with more bonus features. There were almost 45 minutes of footage cut from the film. Lots of cameos that never made it into the film... These would have been great to see. How about interviews with Robert Morse and Jonathan Winters... huh?
"The Loved One" is truly the king of all black comedies.
As the tag line says, "the motion picture with something to offend everyone!".
Rating: - Dark Farce
Based on Evelyn Waugh's tighter and nearly perfect novel about Hollywood, the British colony there and the capitalistic approach to death, "The Loved One" is full of vinegar, bile, pique and nerve, which is a rare thing from Hollywood. Actors who were often asked to do little get a chance to play dark cogs in the wheels of the industries of entertainment and undertaking here: particularly Tab Hunter as the guide on a mortuary tour and Liberace as a coffin salesman, absolute perfection. Jonathan Winters gets his best role in film as twin brothers, one of whom would be God if it weren't a step down. John Gielgud gives a priceless performance, even after he is dead. Robert Morse is slightly miscast as the English Candide, mostly because he doesn't master the accent. Rod Steiger gives his most bizarre performance looking eerily like he did late in life, sans the blonde toupee. Even Milton Berle is really good, playing it completely straight for once. The lunatic idea at the end - shooting coffins into space - was actually floated during the Reagan administration, which this film foreshadows in very strange ways. The message at the end - move to England - was prescient. Perhaps this is the best film to capture the absurdities of California. If you are free of any sense of irony, you'll hate this.
Story from friend who worked on it: Gielgud was shooting his little monologue, a parody of the "This sceptered isle" speech, and a crew member directly in his line of sight thoughtfully picked his nose throughout. Gielgud finished the take, paused so it could be cut, then said, "Dear boy, when the knuckles of your finger reach the bridge of your nose, wave."
Rating:  - I'm definitely in the minority, here
I liked the book, and have always been a great fan of Jonathan Winters, and of humor of all kinds. Nothing in the film offended me - it just didn't amuse me, and it seemed amateurish - the editing, the acting, and the overacting of Winters. I just looked up the Bosley Crowther review from the N.Y. Times of 1965. You can find it on the "Rotten Tomatoes" website. He liked the satire in the first part of the film, but thought that Winters was just too unsubtle, and he wrote that the things the writers added to the Waugh book resulted at the end of the film in - Bosley Crowther's words - "witless inanity." I just saw the film on Turner Classic Movies, and am glad I didn't buy it. I just thought it was unclever & unfunny. But lots of people love it, so what do I know? :-)
Rating: - I want this movie on DVD
I saw this movie 40 years ago and have never forgotten it. I loved Winters as the Blessed Reverend, with his helicopter painted like a clergyman's collar. It is a dark film, with little in the way of a happy ending. But there are a lot of great laughs along the way. Sort of reminds me of Vonnegut.
Rating: - Haskell Wexler and Anganette Comer!!!
Safe Bet-if you didn't get "Dr. Strangelove" you won't get "The Loved One", which tries to be "Dr. Strangelove" by being a strange story about love. It offers an interesting love triangle. Rod Steiger reprises his Judd character from "Oklahoma" (only weirder and less threatening), Robert Morse plays a British version of his "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" character, and Anjanette Comer gives us a pretty good take on what a twenty-something "Wednesday Addams" would be like. You will find considerable subject and style similarity to "Undertaking Betty".
Add to this mix a bunch of hilarious supporting performances from Jonathan Winters, John Gielgud, Liberace, and a host of other familiar people including "Get Smart's Bernie Koppel. This is a very funny film if you enjoy subtle humor and social/political satire. Like the meeting room for the Anglo club where a portrait of the U.S. President is hastily replaced in mid-speech with a portrait of the queen (left hanging askew in back of the speaker).
Inspired if not exactly adapted from the Evelyn Waugh novel, the film has almost perfect dialogue but lacks unity as anything but a social/political satire of mid 1960's western culture, Hollywood, and the funeral industry. The disjointed whole results from MGM's desire to clone "Dr. Strangelove" by adding mainstream elements to Waugh's novel. They forged ahead with an aggressive promotional campaign but the "The Loved One" never took off and immediately became a staple of the college film club circuit where it continues to be popular.
"The Loved One" has a lot going for it but its two real strengths are the performance of Anjanette Comer (as "Aimee Thanatogenous") and the cinematography of Haskell Wexler. Both deserved academy nominations. Ms. Thanatogenous has become a cult heroine and Wexler's ability to move the look of a black and white film back and forth between realism and expressionism is amazing. Comer's reactions to the revelations at the end of the film and Wexler's ability to showcase this are really something special.
"The Loved One" is a must see for fans of black comedy and those who enjoy fine acting for the camera and unparalleled cinematography and production design.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
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