Watch The Loved One For Free

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Director Tony Richardson takes no prisoners as he lambastes the funeral business, the government, religion, ideology, and anything else held sacred by many. Richardson does this in the most comically satiric manner with subtlety, restraint at times, over-indulgence at other moments, and a unique blend of English reservedness and wit mixed with American vulgarity and frankness. I loved this film and was laughing throughout. The story starts off with a young Englishman(Robert Morse) arriving in LA with no job or prospects other than visiting his famous uncle John Gielgud - who is in the movie business. Gielgud invites the young man to stay, introduces him to the strong acting British community, and provides him with living essentials as the young man decides what to do with his life(apparently after a romantic break). We see Gielgud at work and Richardson has no problems making fun of the movie industry at all as Gielgud, a veteran of 31 years, has been reduced to helping an American hick become an Englishman - not even remotely possible. He fails, is let go, and hangs himself. At this point we have a wonderful satire about the film industry, but what follows balloons into something even more grandiose. Character actor Robert Morley insists that this man be buried at the best place possible - Whispering Glades. We then watch Morse go there and see the hyperbolic excesses of the funereal business for those who least need their services - the dead. Morse meets beautiful Anjanette Comer, a make-up artist for the dead, as well as a series of people to help bring his uncle to "peace." Richardson, taking Waugh's novel, really has a knack at steamrolling his satire here with decadent grounds, huge rooms for repose, a bureaucratic network designed only for the wealthy, white, and people of "merit." Liberace, giving a great performance, plays a man who helps Morse decide on what casket, suit, and even shoes his dead uncle will have. The film then turns into a myriad of directions from a rich reverend who has a godlike complex but only a desire to make money, the help of the government to foster this big business, and a romantic triangle like no other with Morse, Comer, and Rod Steiger as Mr. Joyboy - the chief embalmer. While the end of The Loved One does not carry the impact now that it did in 1965, the film as a whole is a witty, incredibly black comedy de farce in many ways. Richardson made a film his way with his ideals firmly planted. Yes, this film will and I am sure did offend many. It also opens one's eyes to a number of things. The acting is great with Morse doing very solid work. Comer, as I said before, is lovely. Steiger - Steiger is great! His Mr. Joyboy with effeminacy reeking, long white curls, and fastidious outfits matched with his outlandish hand gestures steals every scene he is in...EXCEPT the ones with his mother(more on that shortly). His accented dialog was a real treat to hear. "I am saving for Momma's big tub!" His mother, "every inch a queen," is in one of the most bizarre film scenes I have ever seen in any "mainstream" picture. Words fail me. See it. I shall never look at a roast pig again - or a turkey - in the same way. I could go on, but I think you get my favorable stance toward this film which is most definitely under-viewed. Jonathan Winters is superb as well in two roles. Catch Paul Williams in his first film role. Watch Milton Berele give a great cameo as a husband fighting with his wife over a bereaved loved one. What a funny scene that was too!

A line - spoken by a 'council' of Whispering Glades, Mr. Starker - played by Liberace.IF you like (VERY) dark humour, and you've not yet seen this, I recommend it, wholeheartedly.I first saw the loved one only about four or five years ago.But since then, this movie and it's whole... style has stayed imprinted in my brain.The cast of The Loved One is so chock-a-block full of cameos, I couldn't even list them all here.You know a film has to be a little... skewed, shall we say, when one of the first of these cameos is played by the laconic James Coburn - who, within the year, would become Derek Flint, except here, he is a hayseed customs agent at - of all places - Los Angeles international Airport.The plot of the film in a nutshell is Dennis Barlow - played by Robert Morse - comes to Los Angeles (after winning a contest) to visit his uncle, an older man (played by sir John Gielgud) - Sir Francis Hinsley, who works at a film studio and sees the 'writing on the wall' - that is, the Hollywood studio system is almost all but dead, and the kind of pictures he's used to working on are almost gone as well.Seeing that his days - and usefulness - at the studio are numbered, Sir Francis decides his only option out is a permanent one - both from the studio, and from life.Most of the plot of The Loved One, is about what happens after Sir Francis leaves us.Starting almost immediately afterwords, as young Dennis Barlow has to deal with burial preparations.Where else would one do that in the artificial world which IS Los Angeles's film making industry , but, at Whispering Glades (a not-too- subtle poke at Forest Lawn Cemetery).An aside: it was in 1963 - only two years prior to this film - of the publication of Jessica Mitford's book, The American Way of Death which is an exposé of abuses of America's funeral home industry, and examined how death had become a business (and a none-too-pleasant-one at that) - which was too sentimentalized, highly commercialized, and, along with this, the grossly exorbitant costs involved.Nothing is sacred in The Loved One - and as I mentioned, the funeral business is held up highly for ridicule.Anjanette Comer is the love interest of both (young - and breathing) Mr. Barlow, and Mr. Joyboy (played brilliantly by Rod Steiger( the names are almost as delicious as those in a James Bond story) - the head stylist of Whispering Glades.The over-the-top care with which Mr. Joyboy and the entire staff of Whispering Glades devote to the deceased, is mind boggling(ly hysterical).I won't give away too much, but I must point out a scene involving Mr. Joyboy's mother eating - particularly when Mr. Joyboy brings Aimee home - supposedly on a 'date,' but, all he does is cater to his mother's every (food) whim.She's a bed-ridden whale - (then) a caricature of American's gluttony, which is so funny, but so nauseating.I wish anyone who over eats, be made to watch this.It is frightening to see how - what was once (ONLY in the 60's, for goodness sake) a 'fringe' population of morbidly obese people, has (pun DEFINITELY intended) blown up into a national health problem.All-in-all, The Loved One is a film for those, connoisseur's like me - of very dark films - which is definitely not easily forgotten.One last thing: I never knew Ms. Mansfield (and Ruth Gordon!?!? BOTH? CUT!?!?) were in The Loved One 'til I read it in the 'trivia' here (thank you!).

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.