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Entertaining Mr. Sloane
Catalog Number
VHS 606
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Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
Catalog Number
VHS 606
Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
Release Year
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Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970)
Additional Information
Additional Information
Nobody's perfect.
An attractive young charmer by the name of Mr. Sloane weasels his way into the lives of a middle-aged brother and sister, while trying to disguise the truth about his unpleasant past. This black comedy is based on a work by Joe Orton, the taboo-tweaking British playwright who delighted in loading his dialogue with satirical insights and racy double entendres. Indeed, sexual tension drives the plot from the very beginning, when the lonely Kath (Beryl Reid) spots Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery) in a cemetery and invites him to become a boarder. Despite the age difference, Sloane coyly plays along with her flirtations for his own benefit. Their fun seems over when Kath's brother Ed (Harry Andrews) shows up, but the prim and proper gentleman also takes a shine to Sloane, hiring him as his chauffeur and taking particular interest in the young man's tight leather uniform. Kath and Ed's elderly father, however, develops a strong hatred of Sloane, and accuses to him of being involved in an old, unsolved murder. Though the translation to the screen is somewhat uneven, the controversial elements of Orton's text are mostly preserved, and his gleefully amoral tone survives intact.
Roger Greenspun of The New York Times observed, "I think that the play's real interest lies precisely in its grotesque avoidance of the depths with which the movie is so vividly familiar. But in most of its particulars the film succeeds—with a superb cast, Douglas Hickox's inventive and generally restrained direction, and a screenplay by Clive Exton that . . . opens up the action mainly to enlarge the characterization of Ed, a real virtue if only for allowing more time and scope to the wonderful Harry Andrews. To a degree the drama has been realized on film . . . and this seems worth the effort and the occasional misdirections, and the nervous discomfort that is likely to be an audience's most immediate response."[3]
Time Out thought the original play "loses much of its savoury charm in this movie version. Clive Exton's script opens out the play conventionally, to little effect, and Hickox's direction shows little flair for farce in general or Orton in particular
Release Date: July 27, 1970 @ The Fine Arts
Distrib: Continental
An attractive young charmer by the name of Mr. Sloane weasels his way into the lives of a middle-aged brother and sister, while trying to disguise the truth about his unpleasant past. This black comedy is based on a work by Joe Orton, the taboo-tweaking British playwright who delighted in loading his dialogue with satirical insights and racy double entendres. Indeed, sexual tension drives the plot from the very beginning, when the lonely Kath (Beryl Reid) spots Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery) in a cemetery and invites him to become a boarder. Despite the age difference, Sloane coyly plays along with her flirtations for his own benefit. Their fun seems over when Kath's brother Ed (Harry Andrews) shows up, but the prim and proper gentleman also takes a shine to Sloane, hiring him as his chauffeur and taking particular interest in the young man's tight leather uniform. Kath and Ed's elderly father, however, develops a strong hatred of Sloane, and accuses to him of being involved in an old, unsolved murder. Though the translation to the screen is somewhat uneven, the controversial elements of Orton's text are mostly preserved, and his gleefully amoral tone survives intact.
Roger Greenspun of The New York Times observed, "I think that the play's real interest lies precisely in its grotesque avoidance of the depths with which the movie is so vividly familiar. But in most of its particulars the film succeeds—with a superb cast, Douglas Hickox's inventive and generally restrained direction, and a screenplay by Clive Exton that . . . opens up the action mainly to enlarge the characterization of Ed, a real virtue if only for allowing more time and scope to the wonderful Harry Andrews. To a degree the drama has been realized on film . . . and this seems worth the effort and the occasional misdirections, and the nervous discomfort that is likely to be an audience's most immediate response."[3]
Time Out thought the original play "loses much of its savoury charm in this movie version. Clive Exton's script opens out the play conventionally, to little effect, and Hickox's direction shows little flair for farce in general or Orton in particular
Release Date: July 27, 1970 @ The Fine Arts
Distrib: Continental
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