From the moment Morse's plane touches down in LA, we hear choral strains of America the Beautiful; then, for the next two hours, the movie goes about deconstructing that optimistic note. LA comes in for special ridicule, but so do national institutions. Pentagon brass are bribed into converting Earth's gravitational belt into an orbiting graveyard-- not exactly standard operating procedure.Then there's organized religion's Blessed Reverend who shifts entrepreneurial gears faster than an Enron CEO, but with much better success. And when worker-bee Aimee's virginal illusions are finally shattered by the randy reverend (Winters), she chooses a beautiful death over an unfiltered life. Now she can join the godlike statuary in the eternal beauty that Whispering Glen peddles. Illusion, the movie appears to say, is what ultimately counts in this land of manufactured dreams.
The black humor was considered outrageous at the time, especially the mincing Joyboy and his beached-whale of a mom. In those days, "gay" still meant "joyously spirited" and Liberace's sudden appearance with the girls amounted to a new kind of "coming out". The black humor here follows Dr. Strangelove of the preceding year, but lacks the latter's coherence and wallop. This is a movie of bits and pieces-- oblivious Aimee swinging high above the LA precipice; gross-out Mom inspiring gobs of John Waters movies; gate-keeper Coburn thinking poet equals subversive; the Blessed Reverend toting up profits by getting rid of the "stiffs". There are other moments, often hilarious. Nonetheless, the movie doesn't so much culminate as finally peter out. And when the film's final words advise Morse "to go left", we may be getting more than a compass bearing.
As another reviewer points out, this is a film ahead of its time. In fact, it may well be a milestone on the way to the general irreverence of the late 60's when no topic was off- limits. 1965 was a transitional period between the convention-bound 50's and the rebellious upsurge still two years away. A more detailed history would, I think, include The Loved One as a key step in the iconoclasm to come. Though much of the initial punch has been lost, the film still has its moments. Besides, I often get a whiff of the Blessed Reverend whenever I hear the dulcet tones of aggressive sanctimony, which these days is all too often.
