Funeral Movies: The Beloved
The Loved One lampoons the funeral business, including pet funerals, as well as the film industry and the military-industrial complex. It debuted in 1965, two years after Jessica Mitford’s exposé book The American Way of Death rocked the funeral industry. Despite its black-and-white vintage, The Loved One displays funeral trends that have continued to this day.
Critics at the time panned the film, though others considered it to be a very funny comedy. His tagline is “The movie with something to offend everyone.” It’s not terribly offensive by 21st century standards, however the story gets pretty confusing towards the end and most of the characters are unlikable.
The exception is Sir Francis Hinsley (John Gielgud), who hangs himself because he was summarily fired after 31 years of working for a Hollywood studio. He becomes “The Beloved” for whom nephew Dennis Barlow (played by a young Robert Morse) sets out to organize a funeral.
At the Whispering Glades Mortuary and Cemetery, Barlow encounters discrimination against Blacks and Jews, confronted with a myriad of choices to make in caskets, burial choices, and burial clothing (cheerfully introduced by Liberace) , and takes a tour of the Whispering Glades cemetery grounds (Forest Lawn gets its close-up).
Barlow, an unemployed “poet” from England, finds himself attracted to Aimee Thanatogenous (Anjanette Comer), a young woman who puts make-up on corpses in the Whispering Glades. Once Uncle Francis is dispatched with a high level of pomp, Barlow pursues Thanatogenous, who is also pursued by his co-worker, Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger), an embalmer. He brings Miss Thanatogenous home for dinner with him and her fat mother in a weird food orgy.
Things get weirder as The Loved One goes on.
Barlow goes to work for a pet cemetery and cremation service. On his first call, he meets a dog owner (Margaret Leighton) and her husband (Milton Berle) who are eager to dispose of the body and go out to dinner.
(Spoiler alert! Skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know the ending.)
Miss Thanatogenous commits suicide by embalming herself. Air Force officers have a wild party in the coffin room of Whispering Glades. A rocket launch is supposed to carry the remains of a war hero into space, and Barlow manages to switch bodies and launches Miss Thanatogenous in his place.
Terry Southern, known for his outrageous and satirical works of fiction, wrote the screenplay based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. Other southern writing credits include Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Easy Rider, Barbarella, and The Magic Christian.
These elements in The Loved One endure and provide lessons for today’s funeral consumer:
· Weddings and funerals are similar. The Whispering Glades chapel and minister do double duty. There is a fast-changing scene where a newlywed couple rushes out and black crepe falls from the ceiling for Uncle Francis’s funeral. Some funeral homes and cemeteries offer their facilities for both life cycle events. Whether the event is a wedding or a funeral, plan ahead if you want to reduce stress and save money.
· There is always an amazing variety of options to make. While casket rooms are disappearing from funeral homes, the variety of caskets to choose from and the sources to obtain them have only proliferated. Shop around before someone dies to make an informed decision without pressure.
· Pets are part of the family and their loss is deeply felt. People love their pets and often experience intense pain when they die. The pet cemetery and cremation operation at The Loved One displayed disrespectful treatment of dead animals. As with human funerals, shop around before you need such services to ensure you’re working with an ethical provider.
The Loved One can be rented on DVD from Netflix and can be purchased (subject to availability) on Amazon.com.