Right up front, let me say I haven't read the book by Waugh, so I don't have any insights along those lines. I'm not sure if I yet have a full grasp of what's going on in the film. But let me describe how it seemed to me and make a few errant stabs at it.
First of all, the technical quality of this film is very uneven. Haskell Wexler's photography is often breathtaking, but the dubbing of the movie is just horrible. The whole thing looks post-dubbed, and not very well. For the most part, Tony Richardson's directing is excellent. Robert Morse is fast becoming a favorite of mine after seeing him in this and in "How to Succeed in Advertising." He has a rare kind of spontaneity on screen. Jonathan Winters also gives one of his best performances here, and Rod Steiger really looks like he's enjoying himself and stealing as many scenes as possible, as usual. 4th billed Dana Andrews, however, looks haggard and has nothing to do in the film. John Gielgud and Milton Berle aren't in enough of the movie to make a huge impression, but James Coburn has even less screen time, hilarious though his scene is. I guess good cameos are a mark of quality and possibly even eccentricity. In this case the most eccentric cameo is Liberace playing a coffin salesman. To me, that's a good enough reason to watch the movie.
What is this movie really about? Superficially it seems to be about the American attitude about death. I think really it's about greed or self-satisfaction as an ethos in America. As something that you can build your life around. Like Steiger's Mr. Joyboy, tortured to the very last minutes of the film at the thought of giving up his mama's extra-large bathtub so his beloved, Ms. Thanatoginis (Anjanette Comer) can have a "proper" funeral. Speaking of Ms. Thanatoginis (death - Thanatos, that's Greek), she wants nothing but the absolution and beauty of death. Her boyfriend, Morse, apparently understands her so little that he arranges to have her buried in outer space, the manner which would have pleased her the very least. I assume that's part of the point, because Morse's character strikes me as disconnected from everything happening around him that he wants to be a part of.
Some of the stuff in this movie, like the grotesquely obese mama Joyboy and Steiger's dance around the kitchen, would be crude if they weren't executed so artfully. There's a heavy mean spiritedness about the film, you wonder if the writers or director appreciated these characters as much as the actors playing the roles. But I suppose it's all in line with the "pull no punches" school of satire.
Worth watching, but not indispensable to me.
First of all, the technical quality of this film is very uneven. Haskell Wexler's photography is often breathtaking, but the dubbing of the movie is just horrible. The whole thing looks post-dubbed, and not very well. For the most part, Tony Richardson's directing is excellent. Robert Morse is fast becoming a favorite of mine after seeing him in this and in "How to Succeed in Advertising." He has a rare kind of spontaneity on screen. Jonathan Winters also gives one of his best performances here, and Rod Steiger really looks like he's enjoying himself and stealing as many scenes as possible, as usual. 4th billed Dana Andrews, however, looks haggard and has nothing to do in the film. John Gielgud and Milton Berle aren't in enough of the movie to make a huge impression, but James Coburn has even less screen time, hilarious though his scene is. I guess good cameos are a mark of quality and possibly even eccentricity. In this case the most eccentric cameo is Liberace playing a coffin salesman. To me, that's a good enough reason to watch the movie.
What is this movie really about? Superficially it seems to be about the American attitude about death. I think really it's about greed or self-satisfaction as an ethos in America. As something that you can build your life around. Like Steiger's Mr. Joyboy, tortured to the very last minutes of the film at the thought of giving up his mama's extra-large bathtub so his beloved, Ms. Thanatoginis (Anjanette Comer) can have a "proper" funeral. Speaking of Ms. Thanatoginis (death - Thanatos, that's Greek), she wants nothing but the absolution and beauty of death. Her boyfriend, Morse, apparently understands her so little that he arranges to have her buried in outer space, the manner which would have pleased her the very least. I assume that's part of the point, because Morse's character strikes me as disconnected from everything happening around him that he wants to be a part of.
Some of the stuff in this movie, like the grotesquely obese mama Joyboy and Steiger's dance around the kitchen, would be crude if they weren't executed so artfully. There's a heavy mean spiritedness about the film, you wonder if the writers or director appreciated these characters as much as the actors playing the roles. But I suppose it's all in line with the "pull no punches" school of satire.
Worth watching, but not indispensable to me.