Something to offend everyone!

My good friend Erica, her husband Tristram, and two boys are moving to Los Angeles from London. I advised her to show Tristram The Loved One before committing to the move. The Loved One is a novel written by Evelyn Waugh, and made into a film in 1965. It is a dark and macabre comedy following a young British poet after his uncle commits suicide in the backyard of his Hollywood bungalow.  Aimee Thanatogenos is the beautician at Whispering Glades cemetery, based in Forest Lawn who our British poet is pursuing. She lives in one of those insane condemned houses on stilts that everyone is convinced will collapse in an earthquake. One of the film’s highlights occurs when the chief embalmer, Mr. Joyboy, takes Aimee home to meet his rather large mother. This movie is a cross between Six Feet Under and the Addams Family. If you like Forest Lawn, pet cemeteries, Liberace as a casket salesperson, Milton Berle freezing dead poodles in Bel Air, a bleach blond Rod Steiger, you’ll love The Loved One.