After his wife slaps him and then asks why he must always hurt her (Leighton gives a towering parody of grande-dame theatrics), Mr. Kenton pours himself a drink (once he gets the glass upright) and sits down to work out the details with Dennis as quickly as possible. Dennis asks him in the ornate euphemisms of the trade how he wants the dog's body disposed of — entombment, empyrement, dissemination, or eternalization — to which Mr. Kenton replies, "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about." When Dennis explains, Mr. Kenton thinks that burning sounds good. Dennis then asks, "Will you require a niche in our sanctum sanctorum or would you prefer to keep the ashes at home?" at which Mr. Kenton almost chokes on his scotch and mutters, "Not at home, pal, not at home, no."

Berle's gulp and no-nonsense answer suggest more than the rest of the movie in its entirety how far from common feeling the funeral biz has strayed. That one reaction is actually more expressive than Waugh's book as well, because Waugh, as was his style, condemns by implication rather than overt statement, which is fine, until his wit deserts him as it did in The Loved One. Berle may not be subtle but he is concise and pungent, and that moment is a pearl.

The rest of the movie is considerably less precious. It comes within sight of a rousing thematic variety show, like The Big Broadcast of 1938 with a raft of comedy stars and specialists (including Bob Hope, W.C. Fields, Martha Raye, Lynne Overman, Ben Blue, as well as the incongruous musical guest Kirsten Flagstad), but Richardson and Southern aren't qualified for such proceedings. Instead they turn The Loved One into mere perversity, somehow intended as punitive yet seemingly served as both a delicacy and an intoxicant. Perhaps the only way to enjoy it is to accept that saying something offensive is better than saying nothing at all. The Evelyn Waugh who wrote The Loved One might have agreed with that, at any rate.

Works Cited

Fleming, John V. The Roman de la Rose: A Study in Allegory and Iconography. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Guilhamet, Leon. Satire and the Transformation of Genre. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.

Richardson, Tony. The Long-Distance Runner. New York: William Morrow, 1993.

Schama, Simon. Landscape and Memory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

Southern, Terry. The Journal of The Loved One: The Production Log of a Motion Picture. New York: Random House, 1965.

Stannard, Martin. Evelyn Waugh: The Later Years 1939-1966. New York: W.W. Norton, 1992.

Ward, A.C. Twentieth-Century English Literature: 1901-1960. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1964.

Waugh, Evelyn. Black Mischief, Scoop, The Loved One, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. 1932, 1938, 1948, 1957. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.