27789. (Oula Ilari Seitsonen, Vesa-Pekka Herva & Mika Kunnari) Abandoned Refugee Vehicles
. . . . . “In the Middle of Nowhere”: Reflections on the Global Refugee Crisis from the
. . . . . Northern Margins of Europe [article]
27790. (Donald R. Prothero) The Story of the Dinosaurs in 25 Discoveries
27791. (V. Gaffney, et al) Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project; Geophysical Investigation
. . . . . and Landscape Mapping of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site [article]
27792. (André-Yves Bourgès) Géo-topographie et anthroponymie féminine dans les Lais de
. . . . . Marie dite « de France » : Fresne et Codre, Guildeluec et Guilliadu [article]
27793. (Steven Hassan) The Cult of Trump
27794. (Rüdiger Krause) Fortresses and Fortifications: On Fortified Hilltop Settlements of the
. . . . . Bronze Age [article]
27795. (James Stewart) A Review of Food of Sinful Demons: Meat, Vegetarianism , and the Limits of
. . . . . Buddhism in Tibet by Geoffrey Barstow [review]
27796. (Andrew Marantz) Anti-Social ― Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking
. . . . . of the American Conversation
27797. (Gabriel Escribano Cobo, Rosario García Giménez & Alfredo Mederos Martín) Ánfora
. . . . . Romana Bajoimperial de el Cotillo, La Oliva, Fuerteventura [article]
27798. (Delia Perlov & Alex Vilenkin) Cosmology for the Curious
27799. (Jorrit Kelder & Willemijn Waal) Epilogue: Kings and Great Kings in the Aegean and
. . . . . Beyond [article]
Category Archives: B — READING
READING — NOVEMBER 2019
READING — OCTOBER 2019
27767. (Ted Marris-Wolf) Family Bonds: Free Blacks and Re-enslavement Law
27768. (Adam Grydehøj) Marine Island Economies: Drivers, Roles, and Challenges [article]
27769. (George Papasavvas & Vasiliko Kassianidou) The New Status of Copper and Bronze on
. . . . . Cyprus at the End of the Late Bronze Age [article]
27770. (Sang-Hee Lee) Close Encounters with Humankind ― A Paleoanthropologist
. . . . . Investigates Our Evolving Species
27771. [3] The Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse of John [King James Bible]
27772. (Samantha Power) The Education of an Idealist, a Memoir
27773. (Peter Medawar) The Phenomenon of Man [review of Telhard de Chardin’s book]
(William Breiding -ed.) Portable Storage Two:
. . . . 27774. (William Breiding) Crow’s Caw [preface]
. . . . 27775. (Alva Svoboda) Twilight of the APAs [article]
. . . . 27776. (Cheryl Cline) Oh No! [article]
. . . . 27777. (Don Herron) The Quest for Devil’s Food [article]
. . . . 27778. (Rich Coad) Reality, Viewed From Providence [article]
. . . . 27779. (James C. Bodie) All the Time I Didn’t Meet R.E.M. [article]
. . . . 27780. (Billy Wolfenbarger) From Pages Cast [article]
. . . . 27781. (Dale Nelson) Inquiring Minds [article]
. . . . 27782. (Jeanne N. Bowman) Punctuating Equilibrium and the Heart Sutra [article]
. . . . 27783. LOC$
. . . . 27784. (Michael Bracken) Lifecycle of a Fanzine Fan [article]
. . . . 27785. (G. Sutton Breiding) The Gorgon of Poses [article]
. . . . 27786. (AC Kolthoff) Unsolved Mystery [6 vignettes]
27787. (Kewin Peche-Quilichini, et al) Dynamiques du Bronze Moyen dans les grandes îles de la
. . . . . méditerranée occidentale [article]
27788. (Tomas Larsson) Secularisation, Secularism, and the Thai State [article]
READING — SEPTEMBER 2019
27757. (James H. Barrett, R. A. Nicholson & R. Cerón-Carrasco) Archaeo-ichthyological
. . . . . Evidence for Long-term Socioeconomic Trends in Northern Scotland: 3500 BC
. . . . . to AD 1500 [article]
27758. (Michael Patrick Lynch) Know-It-All Society
27759. (Arthur Deconynck) La félicité ambiguë de l’arabie heureuse [article]
27760. (Drew Hayden Taylor) Sir John A: Acts of a Gentrified Ojibway Rebellion [play]
27761. (Carina Barbosa Gouvêa) “Pelos poderes de Montesquieu, eu tenho força!” [article]
27762. (Iain Banks, Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto & Oula Seitsonen) Public Engagements with
. . . . . Lapland’s Dark Heritage: Community Archaeology in Finnish Lapland [article]
27763. (Johnathan Kirsch) A History of the End of the World
27764. (I. Trinks, et al) Large-scale Archaeological Prospection of the Iron Age Settlement
. . . . . Site Uppåkra [article]
27765. (Richard T. McCrea, et al) A “Terror of Tyrannosaurs”: The First Trackways of
. . . . . Tyrannosaurids and Evidence of Gregariousness and Pathology in Tyrannosauridae
. . . . . [article]
27766. (Jorrit M. Kelder, Sara E. Cole & Eric H. Cline) Memphis, Minos, and Mycenae: Bronze
. . . . . Age Contact between Egypt and the Aegean [article]
READING — AUGUST 2019
27742. (Arthur Machen) The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War [article]
27743. (Athur Machen) The Bowmen [story]
27744. (V. Watrous, et al) Economy and Society in the Gournia Region of Crete [article]
27745. (Amy Reed) The Boy and Girl who Broke the World
27746. (Ármann Jakobsson) Felce, William Morris and the Icelandic Sagas [review of William
. . . . . Morris and the Icelandic Sagas by Ian Felce] [review]
27747. (Tom Mason, et al) Spiders of Toronto
27748. (Iurii Mosenkis) Substrates in Germanic [article]
27749. (Antonio Damasio) Descartes’ Error ― Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
27750. (Andrew Robinson) Arthur C. Clarke [article]
27751. (Arthur C. Clarke) 2099 ― The Beginning of History [article]
27752. (Michael Turback) Hot Chocolate
27753. (CIRC) Éclairer l’avenir: Bulletin de rendement des infrastructures canadiennes [report]
27754. (Kate Fazzini) Kingdom of Lies
27755. (Antonio Damasio) Self Comes to Mind
27756. (Mark Sumner) A Financial History of Donald Trump: From Daddy’s Little Boy, to
. . . . . Putin’s Best Partner [article]
27757. (John C. Wathey) The Illusion of God’s Presence
READING — JULY 2019
27729. (Fred C. Woudhuizen) Origin of the Luwian Hieroglyphic Script [article]
27730. (John Henry Cutler) Tom Stetson On the Trail of the Lost Tribe
27731. (Serge Cassen, et al) La détection des gravures sur deux monolithes du haut-cours du
. . . . . Rhône : Le Chemin des Collines à Sion et Le Genevray à Thonon-les-Bains [article]
27732. (Stephen Greenspan) Annals of Gullibility
27733. (Arup Majumder) Effect of Land Acquisition on Social Structure: An Ethnographic
. . . . . Study of a Village in Paschim Medinipur District, West Bengal [article]
27734. (Antonio Damasio) The Strange Order of Things ― Life, Feeling, and the Making of
. . . . . Cultures
Read more »
READING — JUNE 2019
27711. (Robert S. Mueller) Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016
. . . . . Presidential Election [Washington Post edition]
27712. (Madeline Ashby) Company Town
27713. (Valerio Alfonso Bruno) The Production of Fear. European Democracies in the Age of
. . . . . Populisms and Technocracies [article]
27714. (Esther J. Lee et al) Collective Burials among Agro-pastoral Societies in later Neolithic
. . . . . Germany: Perspectives from Ancient DNA [article]
27715. (Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic) Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?
(Oliver Sacks) The River of Consciousness:
. . . . 27716. (Oliver Sacks) Darwin and the Meaning of Flowers [article]
. . . . 27717. (Oliver Sacks) Speed [article]
. . . . 27718. (Oliver Sacks) Sentience: The Mental Lives of Plants and Worms [article]
. . . . 27719. (Oliver Sacks) The Other Road: Freud as Neurologist [article]
. . . . 27720. (Oliver Sacks) The Facility of Memory [article]
. . . . 27721. (Oliver Sacks) Mishearings [article]
. . . . 27722. (Oliver Sacks) The Creative Self [article]
. . . . 27723. (Oliver Sacks) A General Feeling of Disorder [article]
. . . . 27724. (Oliver Sacks) The River of Consciousness [article]
. . . . 27725. (Oliver Sacks) Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science [article]
27726. (Robertus J. van der Spek) Ethnic Segregation in Hellenistic Babylon [article]
27727. (James Randi) The Truth About Uri Geller
27728. (Fiona Bowie) Witchcraft and Healing among the Bangwa of Cameroon [article]
READING – MAY 2019
27681. (Rutger Berman) Utopia for Realists
27682. (Richard Carrier) The Scientist in the Early Roman Empire
(Else Hartoch -ed.) Moudre au Pays des Tungri:
. . . . 27683. (Else Hartoch) Introduction [preface]
. . . . 27684. (Else Hartoch) Les habitudes alimentaires et agricoles du chef-lieu de la cité des
. . . . . . . . Tongres et ses régions envoisinantes [article]
. . . . 27685. (Else Hartoch & Liesbeth Van Camp) Les meules dans les contextes rituels
. . . . . . . . [article]
. . . . 27686. (Else Hartoch & Ide Manteleers) Évolution typologique et fonctionnemnet des
. . . . . . . . meules à travers le temps [article]
. . . . 27687. (Else Hartoch et al) Un moulin à minerai? [article]
. . . . 27688. (Tatjana Gluhack, Eric Goemaere & Else Hartoch) Provenance des matières
. . . . . . . . premières et diffusion des meules [article]
. . . . 27689. (Frans Doperé, Else Hatoch & Stefanie Wefers) Production de meules de la
. . . . . . . . préhistoire à l’époque postromaine [article]
. . . . 27690. (Else Hartoch et al) Catalogue et méthodologie utilisée [article]
. . . . 27691. (Else Hartoch et al) Conclusions [article]
27692. (Lawrence Barkwell) The Metis Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition [article]
27693. (Robert J. Lifton) Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
Read more »
READING — APRIL 2019
27661. (Oliver Dietrich, et al) Göbekli Tepe ― Preliminary Report on the 2012 and 2013
. . . . . Excavation Seasons [article]
27662. (Jean Manco) Ancestral Journeys ― The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to
. . . . . the Vikings
27663. Fun-Size Beano #84 [comix]
27664. (John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard & Jeffrey D. Sachs) World Happiness Report 2019
27665. (J. R. Miller) Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian-White Relations in
. . . . . Canada
27666. (Michaël Thevenin & Anna Mikhkian) Le ronde aux moutons: pratiques de gardiennage
. . . . . collectif des troupeaux communaux en Arménie [article]
27667. (Barbara Wootton) Freedom Under Planning
(William Breiding -ed.) Portable Storage One [Spring 2019]
. . . . 27668. (William Breiding) Crow’s Car [editorial]
. . . . 27669. (Aljo Svoboda) Imperfect Recollections [article]
. . . . 27670. (Dale Nelson) Sort of Like Tolkien [article]
. . . . 27671. (William Breiding) Musings of an Unliterary Man [article]
. . . . 27672. (John Fugazzi) The Pivot Point: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
. . . . . . . . . Band [article]
. . . . 27673. (Janet K. Miller) Blue [article]
. . . . 27674. (William Breiding) Review of Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer [review]
. . . . 27675. (Vincent McHardy) Not a Good Day to Die [article]
. . . . 27676. (Ray Wood) Letter of Comment [letter]
. . . . 27677. (Gary Hubbard) Letter of Comment [letter]
. . . . 27678. (G. Sutton Breiding) The Gorgon of Poses [article]
27679. (W. D. Valgardson) Gentle Sinners
27680. (Knut Rassmann -ed.) High Precision Tripolye Settlement Plans, Demographic
. . . . . Estimations and Settlement Organization [article]
READING — MARCH 2019
27649. (Michael Breen) The New Koreans
27650. (Konstantinos Kopanias & Sherry C. Fox) Headshaping and Identity at Tell Nader
. . . . . [article]
27651. (M. Ginolfi, et al) Where Does Galactic Dust Come From? [article]
27652. (Hergé) Tintin au Congo
27653. (John T. Koch) Hα C1α ≠ PC [The Earliest Hallstatt Iron Age Cannot Equal Proto-
. . . . . Celtic] [article]
27654. (W. D. Valgardson) Thor
Read more »
(Richardson 1965) The Loved One
This is the kind of film that should be seen by happenstance. A deliberate viewing can’t match the delicious pleasure of stumbling upon it by chance. I really shouldn’t even be telling you about it.
In 1947, the British novelist Evelyn Waugh was approached by Hollywood for a possible filming of his novel Brideshead Revisited. The book’s two essential components were a heavy dose of the mystical upper-class Catholisism which exists only in England and bears no resemblance to Catholicism anywhere else, and a steamy homosexual yearning that manages to never mention homosexuality. The idea that this would have been made into a film even vaguely resembling the original was ludicrous, but Waugh was happy to let Hollywood give him an all-expense-paid trip to Los Angeles to haggle. Waugh had no intention of going through with the deal. Waugh was a snob — he was revolted that “lower-class” service people spoke to him as an equal, detested American informality, and complained about everything. But snobs often write the best satire (think Thackeray), as they have no compunctions about hurting people’s feelings. Hollywood is a bizarre, artificial, and goofy place even for Americans, and Waugh found plenty of material for his next satirical novel, The Loved One, which appeared in 1948. He was particularly fascinated by Americans’ peculiar attitudes towards death and (to a Brit) weird funeral customs. The plot is simple: A young Englishman with a posh education but no particular ambition wins a trip to Hollywood, and stays with an Uncle who is a stalwart in the expat British community in the film studios. His host commits suicide, leaving him to fend for himself on this alien planet. Attending to his uncle’s funeral, he becomes involved with Aimée Thanatogenos, an embalmer working at Whispering Glades Cemetery, a spectacularly vulgar Disneyland of Death created by the megalomaniac Blessed Reverend Glenworthy. He encounters an assortment of lunatics, all of them displaying extreme versions of American culture that Waugh found offensive and laughable. As in many of Waugh’s books, and many of the same ilk, the “hero” displays no noticeable virtues other than not being one of the loonies.
Tony Richardson, a British director who had scored big with critically acclaimed and financially successful films (Look Back in Anger; The Entertainer; A Taste of Honey; The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner; Tom Jones) filmed the book in 1965. The script was written by the wildly unlikely combination of Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood. Southern is not much read now, but in 1965 he was in literary vogue, and usually paired with Kurt Vonnegut as a satirist. Isherwood was a gay playwright and novelist who had chronicled the sexual underground of Weimar Germany, and would later reach a wide audience with Cabaret. Waugh had viciously caricatured Isherwood in one of his novels, but in that catty literary crowd such things apparently did not matter much. The film script sticks fairly close to the book, but adds a some scenes that make it fit in better with 1965. These additions would, I suspect, have been fine with Waugh. Visually, the film is a feast. Every shot fills the eye with details just as funny as the situations and the dialog. Every cut serves a satiric purpose. But the real bonanza is the casting. Aimée Thanatogenos is played to perfection by Anjanette Cormer, whose remarkable talent was never well-used by Hollywood. The English hero is played by Robert Morse, one of the few American actors at the time who could convincingly play an Englishman — while the vulgar American film mogul is played by Roddy MacDowall, then still best known as a former English child star. Liberace turns in a hilarious performance as a funeral director — he really missed a chance to be a great comic film actor. Jonathan Winters plays both the Reverend Glenworthy and his incompetent twin brother, making each character a gem. Rod Steiger chews the scenery with the mother-obsessed and nearly psychotic Mr. Joyboy. Paul Williams is a child rocket scientist. The actual Hollywood English Contingent (regularly cast as “Lords and butlers”) essentially play themselves: John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Alan Napier. Milton Berle, James Coburn, Margaret Leighton, Barbara Nichols, Lionel Stander, and Bernie Kopell do well-crafted bits. There are numerous Hollywood in-jokes that the audience could hardly have been expected to catch. For example, the cowboy film star who is being absurdly voice-coached by the studio to play an English Lord is played by Robert Easton. Easton was himself a voice coach, and one of the worlds greatest authorities on English dialects. Many in the cast were closeted gays. Tab Hunter plays a tour guide!
It’s extraordinary that this satirical film, made 54 years ago, based on a book written 71 years ago, remains relevant and bitingly funny.
