Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970)

A lonely middle aged nymphomaniac (Beryl Reid) picks up a young man (Peter McEnery) in a cemetery and brings him home where he becomes her lover. Meanwhile, her brother (Harry Andrews) who is a closeted homosexual also takes an interest in the young man which causes friction between the siblings. Based on the play by Joe Orton (LOOT) and directed by Douglas Hickox (THEATRE OF BLOOD). Orton's play was notorious in its day when it premiered in 1964 and still startling when the movie version opened in 1970. The film version adheres religiously to Orton's text. With its ghoulish black humor, its fixation on sex and an undercurrent of sadness, film audiences stayed away although it quickly became a cult film. Beryl Reid gets Orton's dark farcical humor and she's wonderful here. Acting wise, Peter McEnery is also very good although he's physically wrong for the part. He spends most of the movie in various stages of undress with characters commenting on his beautiful well built body but McEnery is scrawny! I found it amusing but I'm not certain it holds up well. We've progressed a lot these fifty years. I can't help but wonder what Orton would have thought of it (he was murdered three years earlier). With Alan Webb.