The Loved One (1965)

Wonderful character development!

best movie i've ever seen.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I really wanted to like this film. The creative team behind it is astonishing and its cast is remarkable.However the film is obviously written by two people who know how to write novels, not films.The story just meanders and wanders and rambles and it takes quite some time to figure out exactly what is going on and what action we're supposed to be following.It's worth watching as a cultural snapshot, it's got that zany 60s laugh- in type humor happening in spades (the scene with the girls in the coffins comes to mind) but as a film itself it is a mess.

Director Richardson included too much for this film to work. However, the film has wonderful moments. Anjanette Comer's Aimee Thanatogenous self-embalming is the heart of the satire. Unfortunately, Jonathan Winters is, as he too often was, over-the-top and not at all funny in a badly conceived dual role. That we considered that fellow a comedic genius now amazes me.Simply following Evelyn Waugh's delightful book would have insured a much better film. I do not blame Tony Richardson; he directed the masterpiece "The Charge of the Light Brigade". We know that he knew how to make satiric movies. Yet, even in its failure, the film deserves viewing. Maybe the fault is with Terry Southern, who also could do fine work, but did not here. The film is not awful but it is close to awful.

Right up front, let me say I haven't read the book by Waugh, so I don't have any insights along those lines. I'm not sure if I yet have a full grasp of what's going on in the film. But let me describe how it seemed to me and make a few errant stabs at it.First of all, the technical quality of this film is very uneven. Haskell Wexler's photography is often breathtaking, but the dubbing of the movie is just horrible. The whole thing looks post-dubbed, and not very well. For the most part, Tony Richardson's directing is excellent. Robert Morse is fast becoming a favorite of mine after seeing him in this and in "How to Succeed in Advertising." He has a rare kind of spontaneity on screen. Jonathan Winters also gives one of his best performances here, and Rod Steiger really looks like he's enjoying himself and stealing as many scenes as possible, as usual. 4th billed Dana Andrews, however, looks haggard and has nothing to do in the film. John Gielgud and Milton Berle aren't in enough of the movie to make a huge impression, but James Coburn has even less screen time, hilarious though his scene is. I guess good cameos are a mark of quality and possibly even eccentricity. In this case the most eccentric cameo is Liberace playing a coffin salesman. To me, that's a good enough reason to watch the movie.What is this movie really about? Superficially it seems to be about the American attitude about death. I think really it's about greed or self-satisfaction as an ethos in America. As something that you can build your life around. Like Steiger's Mr. Joyboy, tortured to the very last minutes of the film at the thought of giving up his mama's extra-large bathtub so his beloved, Ms. Thanatoginis (Anjanette Comer) can have a "proper" funeral. Speaking of Ms. Thanatoginis (death - Thanatos, that's Greek), she wants nothing but the absolution and beauty of death. Her boyfriend, Morse, apparently understands her so little that he arranges to have her buried in outer space, the manner which would have pleased her the very least. I assume that's part of the point, because Morse's character strikes me as disconnected from everything happening around him that he wants to be a part of.Some of the stuff in this movie, like the grotesquely obese mama Joyboy and Steiger's dance around the kitchen, would be crude if they weren't executed so artfully. There's a heavy mean spiritedness about the film, you wonder if the writers or director appreciated these characters as much as the actors playing the roles. But I suppose it's all in line with the "pull no punches" school of satire.Worth watching, but not indispensable to me.

It's the 60s and when a movie is set in a certain place, there's a decent chance it will be filmed there. It was a great stroke of luck for this movie's longevity that it received location photography. The B&W photography looks terrific!There's an art to black comedy. While there are certainly laughs in this; (A precarious, collapsing house. Aimee kicking the condemned sign and having it shoot out over the house. Roddy MacDowell receiving a goofy scalp massage.); the story is just too flimsy to carry on for 2 hours. Robert Morse is simply not very good and I never had any interest in the main plot line. Around the time Morse begins pursuing airhead Aimee, it becomes a long turnoff. I couldn't be bothered with whether such a dumb guy can win the bimbo. There isn't a moment of his pursuit that I care about. I also cannot get past what a homely dork he is. And if Morse can't do an English accent, just change the part. His poor attempt is a complete distraction. However funny audiences found Morse to be in the 60s, he just doesn't have an ounce of natural humor; He didn't get a single laugh out of me. That is not good when he's on screen so much. That's two strikes you can't recover from; a bad lead actor, and a dead plot line. Strike three is that every single character is a hopeless idiot.There are many times this feels like it's being oddball, strictly for the sake of being oddball. Only Liberace, as a deeply cynical casket salesman, rises to the occasion, gets the tone right and knocks it out of the park. No, Rod Steiger cannot do comedy.Rushmore takes the "two guys fighting over a girl" schtick and with good casting, a dry script and a point, delivers a comedy miracle.