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The Loved One (1965)
The Loved One is one of those obscure little gems known only to connoisseurs of bizarre cinema. It's also an all but forgotten piece of queer cinema, made in that cusp period of film history sandwiched between The Children's Hour and The Boys in the Band. How does one describe the film? Well, as someone remarked to the author while seeing this picture, "It's as if all the queens in Hollywood got together and said 'Let's make a movie.' " Based on an Evelyn Waugh novel, with a script by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood, directed by Tony Richardson, and starring Robert Morse, Sir John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Tab Hunter, Liberace, and Robert Morley, with Reta Shaw as the token lesbian cast member, the movie certainly seems to deserve that description. Of the few straight performers appearing in this flick, Paul Williams has always been very outspoken in his support of gays and gay rights, Jonathan Winters is most famous for his drag turns as Maudie Frickert, Milton Berle was both gay-friendly and well-known for his drag shtick, and Jamie Farr, who has an uncredited bit as a club waiter, became a star years later as the cross-dressing Corporal Klinger on television's M*A*S*H. 'Tis passing queer, indeed. Robert Morse plays Dennis Barlow, a young hack poet who comes to Los Angeles to spend time with his uncle, Sir Francis Hinsley, played by John Gielgud, who works as an art designer for a Hollywood film studio. After studio head Roddy McDowall fires him without notice, Sir Francis hangs himself over the pool. (One speculates if Waugh based the character on James Whale, a friend of his who was a painter and designer as well as a director, who was unceremoniously dismissed from the film industry, and eventually committed suicide, albeit in the pool and not over it.) Handling the burial arrangements leads Barlow to Whispering Glades, a cheesily ornate memorial garden owned by corrupt evangelist the Blessed Reverend Glenworthy, played by Jonathan Winters, and whose business side is reminiscent of the eccentric operations used as fronts by the villains on The Avengers. Tab Hunter appears as a tour guide, and Liberace does a turn as a coffin salesman, so conservatively dressed he must have gone into rhinestone withdrawal during filming. Here Barlow meets mortuary cosmetologist Aimee Thanatogenous, played by Anjanette Comer, a tragically innocent free spirit unaware of the evil and ruthless nature of the Blessed Reverend, to whom she is blindly devoted. After Sir Francis' funeral, in which Barlow eulogizes his uncle by noting that in death he was "well hung," Barlow meets the Blessed Reverend's twin brother Wilbur, also played by Jonathan Winters, who hires him as an assistant at his pet cemetery. Meanwhile, Miss Thanatogenous finds herself the object of ardor from both Barlow and her supervisor, Mr. Joyboy. Played by Rod Steiger, Joyboy injects yet more queerdom into the mix. While he may express an interest in the pretty beautician, he is a prissy middle-aged bachelor who works as a mortician (right up there on the gay scale with florist and hairdresser), can cook and keep house like a dream, and still lives with his mother; the poor man has no clue. Mother Joyboy, played by Ayllene Gibbons, is perhaps the most politically incorrect element in the film, embodying every fat joke imaginable. Spending most of the time in bed, she has an inestimable weight and girth, devours entire suckling pigs and roast turkeys, becomes orgasmic at the sight of food, and watches food commercials with the same fanaticism as others watch soap operas. And devoted Sonny Joyboy is more than happy to indulge his mother's addiction. The film's climax builds as Reverend Glenworthy seeks to replace Whispering Glades with a more profitable retirement community, and his problem of what to do with the bodies is solved by boy rocket scientist Paul Williams, who inspires him to inter the loved ones in orbit. Miss Thanatogenous' world crashes around her as she learns (through Joyboy) that Barlow works in a pet cemetery ("a shameful blasphemy") and that the love poems he has sent her are plagiarized. The guru she has relied on for guidance is a fraud, and she then discovers that her Blessed Reverend, in addition to being a profiteering confidence man, is a sexual predator. Entering Joyboy's workshop, she commits suicide by injecting herself with embalming fluid. Joyboy and Barlow find her, and Barlow convinces Joyboy to switch Aimee's body with that of an astronaut Rev. Glenworthy wants fired into orbit as the first of his space burials. The switch is made, Aimee goes to the heavens, and Barlow, deciding he has had enough of Hollywood insanity, heads back to England. Evelyn Waugh wrote The Loved One in 1948 after a visit to Hollywood, satirizing both that strange community and those of his fellow countrymen who strived to maintain a "veddy english" lifestyle while living there under the hot California sun. The film does essentially the same, though updated for the 1960s. Intended as a follow-up to Tony Richardson's directorial success with Tom Jones, the movie came and went rather quickly, and because of its controversial subject matter and humor, has only recently begun making appearances on television, courtesy of the Turner Classic Movies channel. Critics have noted the film is highly disjointed, owing largely to the fact that Southern and Isherwood inherited the script after it has already undergone numerous treatments by others. Still, most have agreed that it is funny, if macabre and bizarre. At the very least, The Loved One is an excellent example of the sort of biting satire at which gays are especially adept, laughing at the idiosyncricies and hypocrisies of what heterosexuals call "normal society." Links: Internet Movie Database - The Loved One The Loved One a mixed-up jumble of brilliant parts Rotten Tomatoes - "The Loved One"
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