Customer Reviews
Hang On People, You Are About To Be Entertained - By: pris, 19 Feb 2007 
'After WWII, Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood to work on a movie adaptation of his novel "Brideshead Revisited". While in Hollywood he went to a funeral at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Waugh was offended by the pretense of both the American film industry & the American funeral industry, & wove the two together into the novel on which this film was based. IDMB
Prepare yourself, this is a movie for the ages & will live on with a cult following. This is also a movie that begs for an audience to share the laughs & discuss the details. Gather your friends & neighbors, drinks & snacks, & set in for a long winter's night. This movie is done in black & white, & is reminiscent of 'Dr Strangelove'. Like 'Dr Strangelove' it must be seen several times so as not to lose the details. Recently HBO had a series "Six Feet Under' which gave us a realistic portrayal of the funeral business.'The Loved One' gives us a skewered portrayal of the funeral business, a humorous parody.
Robert Morse plays Dennis Barlow, a gawky Englishman, who has won a ticket to LA & has come to see his uncle, John Gielgud. His uncle dies unexpectedly, & the bizarre English community headed by Robert Morley expects a funeral befitting their man. It takes place at The Whispering Glades Memorial Park (the real Forest Lawn, one of the most overdone funeral grounds to be seen). Barlow fallls in love with one of the beautician/guides, Anajette Comer. As the film moves along, Dennis meets Jonathan Winters, who plays two roles, & is as funny as usual. Barlow becomes involved in the funeral business of animals & humans. Rod Stieger steals the movie IMO, as he plays a mortician who brings the dead to life, so to speak. They look better dead than they ever did alive. Varied & bizarre characters weave in & out of the movie. Roddy McDowell Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Tab Hunter, Liberace in the role of his life & Margaret Leighton. There is no shortage of talent, & they are around every corner. Tony Richardson as Director, & Terry Southern & Christopher Isherwood, script writers personafied, finish this extraordinary bill.
"The Loved One's "anything goes" sensibility (the dinner scene with Joyboy & his obese mother would not be out of place in a John Waters movie). By turns creepy & grotesquely funny, The Loved One will bury you." --Donald Liebenson
The macabre hilarity & the sometimes burlesque side gave this film a laugh a minute appeal. The opening scenes are rich, but we are in no way prepared for this unpredictably funny movie. Hang on, people, you are about to be entertained! Highly Recommended. prisrob 2-01-07
