6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 2.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
An aspiring young British poet goes to work at a Hollywood pet cemetery, after falling in love with an ethereal girl who works at the premier burial spot for the rich and famous, in a satire on the film business, the funeral industry, military contracting, real estate developers -- and more.
Starring: Robert Morse (I), Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, Dana Andrews, Milton BerleDark humor | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (96kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Rocky relationships between filmmakers and Hollywood aren't uncommon, but Tinseltown's
conflicts with British director Tony Richardson were unusually tempestuous. In 1961, after
successful English films that included Look Back in Anger with
Richard Burton and The
Entertainer with Laurence Olivier, Richardson was enticed to America to helm a screen
adaptation of a William Faulkner novel with assurances of complete control, only to discover
upon arrival that none of his conditions would be met. The director left in a huff, declaring that
"[i]t is impossible to make anything interesting or good under the conditions imposed by the
major studios in America".
But three years later, after Richardson had won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for
producing and directing Tom Jones, he returned with greater clout to
oversee MGM's screen
version of Evelyn Waugh's satirical novel, The Loved One. This time, the studio left him alone,
but the production was beset by conflict from within, including an ongoing battle between
Richardson and his cinematographer (and co-producer) Haskell Wexler, over how the film
should be shot. Plagued by delays and cost overruns, the film died at the box office, and
Richardson once again returned to England and his own production company, where he spent
most of his remaining career. He did, however, have the satisfaction of watching numerous
studio executives depart the film's initial screening in grim silence, a reaction that Richardson
reportedly greeted with delight.
The novel on which The Loved One is based is a short satire written after its author's trip to
Hollywood, where he attended a funeral at Forest Lawn and was struck by parallels between the
pretensions of the movie industry and the lavish overproduction of the L.A. funeral business. The
book is laced with the kind of acidly condescending sarcasm that is a British specialty, but
Richardson made the odd decision to hire an American screenwriter, Terry Southern, the
notorious author of Candy, whose temperament and style
were the antithesis of Waugh's and
who had recently lent his anarchic sensibility to Dr. Strangelove. Although Richardson did pair
Southern with a British co-writer, he chose Christopher Isherwood, author of the stories that
would inspire Cabaret and, perhaps not
coincidentally, one of Evelyn's Waugh's chief literary
rivals. At the time, Richardson was quoted as saying that Waugh's novel was “thin and dated”—a remark that did not endear the production to the
author, who condemned the film
even before it was finished.
The result of this ill-conceived collaboration is a cinematic train wreck, an overstuffed satire that
can't make up its mind about what it's satirizing because it's so busy extending a middle finger
to everyone watching. (The film's ad campaign promised something to offend everyone, and it
was accurate.) Like many celluloid white elephants, The Loved One has garnered a cult following
over the years, and for those fans the Warner Archive Collection now offers the film on Blu-ray
in a sterling new transfer so beautifully rendering the film's black-and-white imagery that you'd
never know how, behind the camera, the director and cinematographer were routinely at each
other's throats.
Haskell Wexler would win an Oscar for his next film, Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?, where his
collaboration with director Mike Nichols must have been a relief after his epic battles with The
Loved One's director over how to shoot in black-and-white. Notwithstanding their
disagreements, what ended up on the screen is an expressive image that beautifully renders both
the obscene opulence of Whispering Glades and the quotidian dullness of Dennis Barlow's
private struggles. For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, the Warner Archive Collection
commissioned a new scan of a fine-grain master positive that was recently struck from the
original camera negative for preservation purposes. The scan was performed at 2K by Warner's
Motion Picture Imaging facility, followed by appropriate color-correction and cleanup.
The result joins WAC's growing catalog of lustrous B&W images, with exceptional depth and
clarity. Even without color, the extravagance of the production design is memorable,
and the Blu-ray renders it with impressive sharpness and detail. Blacks are solid, shades
of gray are finely delineated, and the film's grain pattern is finely resolved. The Loved One's plot
may be a mess, but it's image on Blu-ray remains clean and tightly focused. To ennsure a
superior presentation, WAC has mastered The Loved One as its usual high average bitrate, here
just a fraction under 35 Mbps, with a superior encode.
The Loved One's mono track has been taken from the original magnetic master, cleaned of any age-related defects and encoded on Blu-ray in DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's a dialogue-heavy track, with occasional attention-grabbing effects, many of them associated with Gunther Fry's rocketry. For the film's mocking score, director Richardson turned to his frequent collaborator, British composer John Addison, who had just won an Oscar for scoring Tom Jones.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2006 DVD of The Loved One. The trailer has
been remastered in 1080p.
The Loved One is a mess, but it exercises a strange fascination that is the classic hallmark of a
cult film. Fans will love WAC's first-rate presentation, but newcomers should proceed with
caution.
1965
Warner Archive Collection
1963
1968
2K Restoration
1965
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1967
1965
1963
Warner Archive Collection
1948
1971
1971
1945
High and Dry
1954
1972
1939
The Don Knotts Collection
1969
1985
2012
1941
1963
1968