Film Screening: The Loved One (1965)

Experience cinema’s most delirious visions of 20th century satire, horror, and Liberace
in one of Chicago's most unique locations!
About this Event

Join the International Museum of Surgical Science, local film programmer Stephanie Sack, and Inclusive Funeral Care on September 3 for a one-night-only presentation of this hilarious, blistering, genuinely extraordinary film.

The Loved One
Tony Richardson, 1965, USA
September 3, 2026 at 6:30pm

Doors open at 6:00pm

Tickets:

$15 GA Presale: Admission to either 7/23 or 8/20 screening

$10 Student Presale (Use code STUDENT at checkout)

$10 IMSS Member Presale (Use code IMSSMEMBER at checkout)

At Door

$20 at Door

$15 Student at Door

$15 IMSS Member at Door

Selected and sponsored by Inclusive Funeral Care

What if the finality of a funeral could be the beginning of a conversation?

Tony Richardson’s sardonic, strange, and startlingly dark 1965 satire The Loved One views the American way of death through an outsider’s eye, finding a suspicious kinship between the elaborate showboating of Hollywood, the obsequious grandeur of the cemetery, and our Sisyphean efforts to put social graces, better upholstery, and a manageable timetable around the universally unmanageable.

Evelyn Waugh began writing The Loved One in 1947, after his own unhappy encounter with Hollywood, and published the biting little novel in 1948. Almost twenty years later, Richardson brought Waugh’s book back to Los Angeles, directing the film in 1964 for Filmways before MGM — still synonymous with Hollywood stars, polish, and prestige — took the decidedly less polished risk of releasing it in 1965. The studio was reportedly unsure how to market the thing. No wonder: The Loved One was black-and-white, wildly macabre, openly contemptuous of Hollywood artifice and American commerce, and eventually advertised with the promise of “something to offend everyone.”

And what a group Richardson assembled to offend! Waugh’s novel was adapted by Christopher Isherwood and Terry Southern — fresh from co-writing Dr. Strangelove — and photographed and co-produced by Chicago native Haskell Wexler, one of the great American cinematographers, who would return home in 1967 to make Medium Cool. Future filmmaker Hal Ashby was among the editors, while the film’s extraordinary visual world was created by internationally celebrated designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian. Then there is the cast, which feels less assembled than unleashed: Robert Morse, Anjanette Comer, Rod Steiger, Jonathan Winters, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Robert Morley, Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Tab Hunter, Lionel Stander, and Paul Williams.

And then there is Liberace. Magnificently cast as a casket salesman, he glides through the possibilities of eternal repose with the tact, refinement, and gentle insistence of someone helping you choose a very expensive sofa. In a film fascinated by the uneasy meeting place between mortality and commerce, it may be the perfect performance: death is inevitable, certainly -- but have you considered the upgraded model? Even in 1965, a year that gave audiences The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago, Thunderball, Cat Ballou, and Ship of Fools, The Loved One is FAR OUT. The satire gets blacker, the performances bigger, and the entire enterprise more macabre, extravagant, and savage. Yet beneath all the lunacy sits a surprisingly simple question: how do we acknowledge what death looks like when so much of our culture is devoted to making it look like something else?

Which brings us, rather naturally, back to Liberace.

There is something almost ingenious about putting a famously extravagant entertainer behind a casket showroom desk: the thing we least want to contemplate is suddenly funny, fascinating, even discussable. The joke doesn’t diminish death; rather, it simply offers another way into the conversation.

Bio: Stephanie “La Gialloholique” Sack is a longtime cinephile and devoted enthusiast of high art horror cinema, with a special passion for films from the 20th century. Her love of film centers on exploring the artistry, context, and emotion behind works that have often been overlooked or misunderstood. Known for her thoughtful curation and infectious enthusiasm, Stephanie brings fresh perspectives to audiences eager to rediscover hidden gems of film history, particularly from her favorite genres of Italian Giallo, French Fantastique, and Soviet Sci-Fi. Through her ongoing programming and producing, Stephanie continues to champion films that challenge convention and deserve a second look.

It is in that spirit of candid, slightly irreverent curiosity that The Loved One was selected and sponsored by Inclusive Funeral Care, an independent, queer-owned Chicago funeral home and end-of-life concierge service bringing more than 40 years of combined experience to thoughtful, highly personalized death care. Meet the people behind Inclusive Funeral Care and learn about their compassionate, individualized end-of-life approach, including pre-planning, traditional funerals, cremation, green burial, body donation, and celebrations of life.