The Loved One (1965)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Tony Richardson

Writers:

Evelyn Waugh (novel)
Terry Southern (writer) ...

Release Date:

11 October 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

The motion picture with something to offend everyone!

Plot:

Satire on the funeral business, in which a young British poet goes to work at a Hollywood cemetery.

Plot Keywords:

Funeral | Satire | Embalmer | Poet | Cemetery

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Robert Morse	...	Dennis Barlow
Jonathan Winters	...	Henry Glenworthy / Rev. Wilbur Glenworthy
Anjanette Comer	...	Aimee Thanatogenous
Dana Andrews	...	Gen. Buck Brinkman
Milton Berle	...	Mr. Kenton
James Coburn	...	Immigration Officer
John Gielgud	...	Sir Francis Hinsley
Tab Hunter	...	Whispering Glades Tour Guide
Margaret Leighton	...	Mrs. Helen Kenton
Liberace	...	Mr. Starker
Roddy McDowall	...	D.J. Jr.
Robert Morley	...	Sir Ambrose Ambercrombie
Barbara Nichols	...	Sadie Blodgett
Lionel Stander	...	The Guru Brahmin
Roxanne Arlen	...	Whispering Glades Hostess

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Norway:16 | UK:X | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Filmways Pictures

Trivia:

American actor Robert Morse had such trouble keeping up his British accent that eventually all of his dialogue had to be recorded in a studio and dubbed over the film.

Quotes:

Henry Glenworthy: Listen, I've got to make a little trip over to Beverly Hills... to see a man about a dog.

Movie Connections:

References "The Outer Limits: The Sixth Finger (#1.5)" (1963)

Soundtrack:

Pomp and Circumstance

The View from 1965

Several of you youngsters have added comments here to the effect you wanted to know how this film was received in 1965. Here is the lowdown.

It was skewered by the few uptight critics who got it, and passed off as sheer nonsense by the ones who didn't. It had a big, big promotional sendoff on television and in the newspapers, featuring its over-the-top ending that is commented on elsewhere in these archives. That, in fact, is the single characteristic placing this film in the history books as one of the first real anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-bourgeois relics of popular culture just at the cusp of an entirely new epoch.

I am still dumbfounded that it went generally over the heads of most people in 1965. (Well, at least I am bemused by it.) "Dr. Strangelove" received much the same treatment. It was as if the country was still on overdrive after the assassination of President Kennedy, numb and oblivious as to what was about to happen. Only the very young, influenced as they were by the Beatles and other revolutionary pop music icons, seemed to have a clue. But they were powerless within the political vacuum that led up to the war in Vietnam, and by the time all the turmoil of 1968 came along, this movie had been long forgotten.

This is one fan, however, who still regards this wonderful satire as one of the top ten of the 20th century, right up there with the best of Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, and Saturday Night Live (in its better days, of course).