The Loved One

Evelyn Waugh's satirical novel about the British in Hollywood and Californian funeral practices was long a Buñuel project, but it finally fell to Richardson and a potentially riotous cast. Morse, unfortunately, as the British poet who ends up in the pet cemetery business, is no match for the expert wackiness on display, in particular Ayllene Gibbons as Steiger's bedridden (and food-bound) mother, and Liberace as a casket salesman. Sadly, the script, by Terry Southern out of Christopher Isherwood, just tries too hard to pack too much in, and the frenetic pacing becomes tiresome very quickly.