portaeporta-47060
A really nice and funny based on good subversive humor.
I love it.
Martin Bradley
"Entertaining Mr Sloane" is regarded in some quarters as one of the great post-war British comedies though you would hardly think so after seeing this 1970 film version. It's not at all bad, is frequently very funny and its cast of four, (Beryl Reid, Harry Andrews, Peter McEnery and Alan Webb), give it all they've got. Reid and Andrews are siblings; she's a nymphomaniac and he's gay and McEnery is the eponymous Mr Sloane, the object of both their affections. Webb is their ancient father and it's he who rubs Mr Sloane up the wrong way. Douglas Hickox directed without much imagination, relying too heavily on the material. Entertaining it certainly is but great? Best you see it on stage before making up your mind.
Neil Doyle
ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE is certainly an uneven adaptation of the Joe Orton play, but it does create a few sparks with the performances of BERYL REID as Kath, PETER McENERY as Sloane and HARRY ANDREWS as Ed. The trio is involved in a three-way affair with Mr. Sloane who charms them both with his good looks and apparently bi-sexual leanings.It's certainly not the usual fare one expects to see on screen, even in the '70s when the material was considered quite daring. But the script gives the three principals some rich material to work with and the film now has a cult status with fans of black comedy.Orton is the gay playwright who was killed by his lover who then committed suicide and was dead before this film version of his hit London play was made. Whether he would have approved of some of the changes is debatable, but it still has the power to shock and cause ripples of laughter despite the darkness of the theme.Summing up: As oddball as they come.
Pangborne
This adaptation of the brilliant Joe Orton play in an unmitigated disaster. Every joke is overdone to the point of surrealism. The wit is killed dead, and any pretense to psychology is thrown out the window in a late sixties psychedelic mish-mash completely at odds with the stage farce tone of the source material. If people like this movie, it's for the sheer oddness, not because it has any of the qualities evinced by the play. It's like watching a Noel Coward play performed by lunatics in an asylum.
AD
