Le cher disparu

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).

If you thought that funeral homes could only make for grim plots in movies, then you've got a real surprise coming! "The Loved One" portrays a young Brit Dennis Barlow (Robert Morse) coming to the Los Angeles and getting involved in a funeral parlor, with some very zany results. It's the sort of wacky humor that pervaded comedy flicks in the 1960s, right down to the giant cast (aside from Robert Morse, there's Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, James Coburn, John Gielgud, Tab Hunter, Liberace, Roddy McDowall, Robert Morley, Lionel Stander and Rod Steiger).

Anyway, this movie really does have something to offend everyone. Goofy but lovable, it's not to be missed.

Maybe in its time this film was provocative and entertaining. The decade of the 1960s was known for its cinematic audacity and spunk, descriptions befitting the film's underlying concept. But what seems daring and futuristic today can look stunningly grotesque when the future actually arrives. And forty years after it was made, "The Loved One" just seems ... bizarre.

We're led to believe that the film lampoons the funeral and burial industry. And part of the film's first half does just that. Here, humor derives partly from dialogue, especially as it relates to burial terminology. Our casket salesman, Mr. Starker (Liberace), explains to the film's protagonist: "I can give you our eternal flame in either perpetual eternal or standard eternal". Then he asks: "propane or butane, Mr. Barlow?" Marvelous. And part of the humor is visual, as we watch the finicky embalmer, Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger), trying out various expressions on the loved one's face.

But the funeral and burial industry satire consumes less than half of the film's two-hour runtime. The rest of the plot is a mishmash of assorted gags, skits, and pranks, strictly tangential to the stated concept. You get the feeling that the script was written by a committee. Some of this plot tangle derives from too many celebrity cameos. These actors (James Coburn, Milton Berle, Tab Hunter, and many others) appear in a scene or two, then vanish, to be replaced later by others, none of whom are essential to the plot.

Probably the best elements of the film are its B&W cinematography and the production design. Outdoor scenes at Whispering Glades are visually lush. And the interior is interestingly ornate, although far more Gothic than any funeral home I've ever been in.

The film's casting and acting for major roles get mixed grades from me. Robert Morse as the protagonist, Sir John Gielgud as his uncle, and Rod Steiger as the embalmer are all fine. But as much as I like Jonathan Winters, his performance here, for whatever reason, just does not work; I found it grating and annoying.

If I had seen this film when it first came out, I might have had a more favorable impression of it. And, to repeat, it does have a certain charm, if only sporadic. But so much has happened in the last forty years, and there's been so many changes in America's culture, "The Loved One", for all its intended courage and boldness in 1965, now seems, for the most part, just puerile and pointless.

One of those movies that make you wonder how it got made when it was made, "The Loved One" is a priceless treasure. See this movie, and you'll want all the quirky irreverent funny people you love to see it too.

WHY IS THIS MOVIE NOT ON VIDEOTAPE? I mean, if somebody can take the time to put "Porky's II" on DVD, I think humanity is ill-served by the lack of a law to ensure that movies like "The Loved One" are also available.

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.