This beautifully sick '60's comedy was incredibly way ahead of its time -like Lord Love a Duck- and the fact that it was released in the same year as The Sound of Music shows that times were definitely changing.
Director Tony Richardson skewers Hollywood culture, big-time corporations, religious beliefs, heros, strippers, and death itself in this dark satirical social commentary that tells the tale of a fresh young innocent (Robert Morse) who comes to Hollywood to stay with his uncle (John Gielgud) and winds up working in a pet cemetary.
Richardson somehow managed to bring out a light-in-the-loafers performance in intense Method actor Rod Steiger and his Mr. Joyboy is a shocking about-face from his heavy dramatic work in The Pawnbroker or Doctor Zhivago. Whether he's arranging the face of a recently deceased corpse or twirling a soon-to-be-embalmed infant, Steiger relishes every single moment he has on screen and Mr. Joyboy is one of the most disturbingly hilarious characters ever put on film.
Anjanette Comer is also a wonderful discovery and her Miss Thanatogenous -the object of Mr. Joyboy's desire- is a happy-go-lucky Morticia Addams and another unique character that's completely her own: she and Steiger create this bizarre twosome with such individual owernship that they're not reminiscent of anyone else in the history of motion pictures. Her light voice has an off-kilter quality that makes her seem so vulnerable to everything and when Miss Thanatogenous discovers the advice columnist she worships (the late Lionel Stander who's perfect) drunk in a bar it becomes the most brutal/funny scene in the movie.
The Loved One starts out at quite a slow pace but just stay with it because you'll never see anything like again. It contains some side-splitting laughs and first-rate contributions from Liberace, Milton Berle, Paul Williams, Johnathan Winters, and Roddy McDowell. (Don't miss what Morse has in his refrigerator!)
Director Tony Richardson skewers Hollywood culture, big-time corporations, religious beliefs, heros, strippers, and death itself in this dark satirical social commentary that tells the tale of a fresh young innocent (Robert Morse) who comes to Hollywood to stay with his uncle (John Gielgud) and winds up working in a pet cemetary.
Richardson somehow managed to bring out a light-in-the-loafers performance in intense Method actor Rod Steiger and his Mr. Joyboy is a shocking about-face from his heavy dramatic work in The Pawnbroker or Doctor Zhivago. Whether he's arranging the face of a recently deceased corpse or twirling a soon-to-be-embalmed infant, Steiger relishes every single moment he has on screen and Mr. Joyboy is one of the most disturbingly hilarious characters ever put on film.
Anjanette Comer is also a wonderful discovery and her Miss Thanatogenous -the object of Mr. Joyboy's desire- is a happy-go-lucky Morticia Addams and another unique character that's completely her own: she and Steiger create this bizarre twosome with such individual owernship that they're not reminiscent of anyone else in the history of motion pictures. Her light voice has an off-kilter quality that makes her seem so vulnerable to everything and when Miss Thanatogenous discovers the advice columnist she worships (the late Lionel Stander who's perfect) drunk in a bar it becomes the most brutal/funny scene in the movie.
The Loved One starts out at quite a slow pace but just stay with it because you'll never see anything like again. It contains some side-splitting laughs and first-rate contributions from Liberace, Milton Berle, Paul Williams, Johnathan Winters, and Roddy McDowell. (Don't miss what Morse has in his refrigerator!)