Hot n’ horny “middle-aged” Kath (Beryl Reid, whom you may remember from 1973’s absolutely awesome teen biker gang and magic filled experience that can only be Psychomania… or The Death Wheelers as it’s sometimes known) flitters her scantily-clad ass around an overgrown, ancient cemetery wherein she encounters Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery), a dashing bi-sexual drifter-type working out among the tombstones.
Kath invites Sloane to become a lodger in her home; a converted church abode she shares with her father, Dadda (Alan Webb, The Great Train Robbery), and as is quickly established, these people are completely fucking bonkers… but Sloane isn’t exactly all-there either as Dadda immediately recognizes him as the murderer of his former boss.
Almost simultaneous with this happening, Dadda’s estranged, homosexual son Ed (Harry Andrews… immediately recognizable as one of those big heads saying “Guilty.” in the Krypton-set opening of 1978’s Superman… but he was also in Watership Down and Hawk the Slayer as well) makes the scene, horsing the absolute fuck out of his pink 1959 Pontiac Parisienne convertible.
He instantly falls head-over-cock in lust with Sloane, and immediately hires the dude as his chauffeur, clad head to toe in light brown leather no less, though often Ed is the one driving Sloane around… and thus begins an absolutely off-the-rails love triangle between the siblings and the morally-void former-transient.
And while he isn’t igniting the lust of Kath and Ed, he’s absolutely way too into messing with Dadda… and apparently also into screwin’ chicks in Ed’s power vehicle.
Things begin to take a turn when Kath becomes pregnant with Sloane’s child, and it just gets darker from there…
While that may seem grim, make no mistake… Entertaining Mr. Sloane is a brilliant (and pitch black) comedy!
The small cast assembled here are undeniably excellent with Reid devouring her role as daffy nympho Kath giving a performance that is at times charmingly naïve, desperate & repulsive, and deeply sad, Andrews as the worldly Ed displaying an aristocratic air while trying to keep his thirst for his young chauffer at bay, and McEnery coming off as equal parts vile and charismatic as said chauffer/murderer.
Directed by Douglas Hickox (Theater of Blood) and based on a play by Joe Orton (adapted for the screen by Clive Exton (Red Sonja), Entertaining Mr. Sloane is a revolutionary take on what is at it’s core a Gothic thriller (with it’s neo-crumbling mansion full of dark family secrets and relationships, not to mention that graveyard… ) but turned on it’s head by contemporary (for the early 1970’s) takes on moral ambiguity, androgyny, and fulfillment of one’s sexual desires taken to absolutely batshit, at times violent extremes… plus there’s that comedic streak!
Running parallel with the films surreal nature are the artistic flourishes on display, with shots bathed in light from stained glass windows, actors filmed through broken glass (lots of glass here… ), and extreme face-centric close-ups that create discomfort via proximity to these lunatics.
Also, a round of applause for the off the rails ludicrous, banger of a eponymous theme song by Georgie Fame that brings us into the intimate thoughts of at least one (?) of the movie’s sibs.
Additionally there are pickled onions present, for whatever that’s worth to you…
All of the above delightfully smarmy goodness looks rather fetching here as Severin’s presentation of Entertaining Mr. Sloane, scanned in 2K from the original camera negative, offers up an image replete with plenty of detail, bright color, and pleasing film grain.
Enhancing your enjoyment of the off-the-wall world of Entertaining Mr. Sloane are a quality selection of special features that kick-off with an audio commentary with film historian Nathaniel Thompson and Orton scholar Dr. Emma Parker that provides information on the film’s production along with a scholarly analysis of the picture’s themes and place in Orton’s oeuvre.
Following that we get archival interviews with McEnery, author/Orton biographer John Lahr, and Orton’s sister Leonie Orton, retrospectives on the film, Orton, and Reid, an archival look at Entertaining Mr. Sloane‘s locations, a look at the flicks costuming (and sexuality), and the film’s theatrical trailer.
Witty, darkly comedic, and delightfully immoral, Entertaining Mr. Sloane is a wickedly entertaining, eccentric gem that’s sure to please lovers of off-beat British cinema!
