Le cher disparu

As a follow-up to the hugely popular "Tom Jones" the iconoclastic director Tony Richardson chose a modern Evelyn Waugh darkly satiric novel that was ostensibly about the funeral business but in Richardson's (& Terry Southern's) hands became a savagely funny commentary on Hollywood and America as well. The cast is awesome--even disregarding some of the cameos like Milton Berle, Liberace, and Tab Hunter--particularly good are Gielgud, Jonathan Winters in a fabulous dual role, Rod Steiger as the immortal Joyboy, and Roddy McDowell. Hilarious! The leads are strangely effective: Bobby Morse doing the knowing nebbish character that he perfected in the mid-60s, and Anjanette Comer as the aptly-named Amy Thanatogenis. One of my alltime favorite comedies, I've seen it close to 20 times since 1965...For anyone who ever had to save up for "Mom's big tub." Increpitable!

Having worked in the funeral industry, I have met some of these characters in real life, I can really appreciate this great satirical movie. There was not any bad scenes in this movie. The actors all gave good performances. The movie was stolen by Rod Steiger with his Mr. Joyboy roll. Rod Steiger almost repeated his Joyboy roll in No Way To Treat A Lady, as Dorian Smith. If you are a fan of dark comedies, do not miss one of the greatest dark comedies.

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).

It is hard to place any kind of meaningful description to this film because it takes cultural, social, and moral ideals and stomps on them. Additionally, the casting of the film goes against type, with Jonathan Winters, for example, as a dark, imposing religious force. The acting is superb, intense and, at times, intentionally campy and over-the-top. Each scene seems outrageous and, at times, ridiculous but inexorably moves the characters, and the audience, to a lip-biting conclusion.

Terry Southern, one of the credited screen writers, was also responsible for Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, Barbarella, Candy, Easy Rider, The Magic Christian, and many other wacky films. Knowing this may help to place it in some familiar context. Of all his films, though, this is the darkest.

If you are disturbed or offended by the funeral business, death in general, dead pets, or slightly veiled hints at necrophilia then you might want to give this one a miss. If you're brave and open-minded, however, I highly recommend this truly strange and wonderful film.

There are few films I can recommend this highly. Morse is memorable as the hapless Englishman, trying to understand this peculiar American commercial funeral institution and the nearly fanatical devotees to the Jonathan Winters' Blessed Reverend.

The tawdry nature of the corporate funeral industry gradually unfolds in this fantastic study of our fixation with marketing everything, even death.

Jonathan Winters, Rod Steiger is brilliant as Mr. Joyboy, the effete chief embalmer, and the film features such huge talent as John Gielgud and Robert Morley as well as a cameos by Milton Berle, Roddy McDowell, Tab Hunter, and Liberace as the smarmy casket salesman. Look for a very young Paul Williams and...is that James Coburn? Yes, yes it is.

Be advised that there are some dubbing and sound issues common to films of this era, but if you're more concerned with a/v than story and humor, you should be off looking at...I dunno, something from George Lucas.

This film's greatest flaw is that it's hard to find on VHS and doesn't exist on the DVD.