Label: Severin Films
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 94 Minutes 11 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Douglas Hickox
Cast: Peter McEnery, Harry Andrews, Alan Webb, Beryl Reid
Audio/Video: Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970) arrives on Blu-ray from Severin Film in 1080p HD framed in 1.85;1, scanned in 2K from the original camera negative, looking quite solid, with the source retaining filmic qualities, excellent grain structures, and plenty of textures throughout. Colors look wonderful with Ed's pink convertible looking wonderful, black levels are solid, and flesh tones look natural. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The comically wry dialogue sounds terrific, no age-related issues I could detect, and score and modest sound effect fare well.
Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970), directed by Douglas Hickox (Theatre of Blood), opens with the lonely middle-aged Kath (Beryl Reid, Psychomania), dressed in a too-short and see-through dress wandering through the cemetery licking on a popsicle when she stumbles across the svelte sexual dynamo Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery, Tales That Witness Madness) laying shirtless on a gravestone sunning himself. The obviously horny old broad invites him to be a lodger at her home, and Sloan doesn't seem to the sort to pass up the kindness of a stranger, so he accepts after feigning some wariness. Back at her home she makes come-ons and he plays off her advances coyly, and soon after her closeted upper-crust brother Ed (Harry Andrews, Theatre of Blood), arrives, driving up in a pink Pontiac Parisienne convertible, it's quite a site! He ostensibly checks out and questions Sloane to make sure he is not taking advantage of his warped-minded sister, but it's also quite obvious that he too is attracted to the still shirtless young man - and for his part Sloane seems to have a very negotiable sexuality, so he plays along when Ed asks him to be his chauffeur, and gets dandied up in a camel leather chauffeur outfit that fits snugly in all the right places. Less enthused to see his the horny sibling's elderly father Kemp (Alan Webb, The Duellists), who recognizes him as the man who killed his employer years earlier, which could potentially cause an issue for the morally diabolical Mr. Sloane.
What ensues is a wonderfully delirious triangle of lust, murder and dry Brit wit with banger dialogue as the characters trade verbal barbs and coded come-ons, all charged with a psycho-sexual delirium that I found absolutely intoxicating. All four co-stars are firing with precision, the scenes of the horny sibling fighting over their sexual prize, with zesty double-entendres falling out of their mouths left and right had me in stitches. This is such a wonderful slice of transgressive cinema, it's cheerfully cheeky, slyly dark, and delightfully twisted, just the way I like 'em.
Audio/Video: Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970) arrives on Blu-ray from Severin Film in 1080p HD framed in 1.85;1, scanned in 2K from the original camera negative, looking quite solid, with the source retaining filmic qualities, excellent grain structures, and plenty of textures throughout. Colors look wonderful with Ed's pink convertible looking wonderful, black levels are solid, and flesh tones look natural. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The comically wry dialogue sounds terrific, no age-related issues I could detect, and score and modest sound effect fare well.
Onto the extras, I must say that this is a very well-stocked edition. we begin with an Audio Commentary With Film Historian Nathaniel Thompson And Orton Scholar Dr. Emma Parker, it's a pleasantly conversational track, Parker is quite a knowledgeable resource, and combined with Thompson enthusiasm for cult cinema, it's just a dynamite track.
Next, a 10-min Archival Interview With Actor Peter McEnery, whom discusses where his career was at the time he came onboard, just coming off contracts with Disney and United artists, he gets into what attracted him to the role, enjoying the play and trying to do something else with the character, the outrageous script, creating his own backstory for the character, and what it was like working with Beryl Reed, plus his thoughts on director Hickox, and his thoughts on the film.
We also get the 27-min All My Sloanes – 60 Years Of Joe Orton's Mr. Sloane, Featuring Malcolm McDowell And Maxwell Caulfield, an appreciation of the ambiguous dark character with negotiable sexuality. McDowell has some wonderful tales of working with Beryl Reed on a later stage version, and working on an adaptation of Orton's The Collection with Lawrence Olivier, while Caulfield attributes landing Grease 2 based on his turn in the stage play during it's American debut.
the 45-min Archival Interview With John Lahr, Author Of Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography Of Joe Orton, gets into Orton's younger life, background of Orton's partner Kenneth Halliwell, how Orton met him, his snide sense of self, and the particulars of his toxic personality. He also speaks about Orton's first getting into writing, his influence on 60s culture, and plenty more, it's in-depth and quite interesting.
In the 28-min Archival Interview With Leonie Orton Remembering Her Brother Joe, Orton's youngest sibling recalls the four siblings growing up together in poverty, how he was her favorite and she his, and not realizing how groundbreaking Sloane was at the time she first saw it. She also gets into her brother's imprisonment, the controversy around the stage play Loot, and his relationship with Kenneth Halliwell, and how it fell apart and ended tragically, and what happened to Orton's his belongings after his murder.
Then onto the 18-min Ortonesque – Screenwriter David McGillivray On The Lasting Influence Of Joe Orton, a look at the Lasting Influence of Orton, wherein McGillivray talks about first becoming aware of Orton with the scandalous stageplay Loot, and how his last play What the Butler Saw broke through into the mainstream, and but he was murdered before he saw it success. he also talks about how '"Ortonesque" was coined to group similar sort of works, and getting into authors, writers and entertainers who he feels were influenced by his style. he gives an appreciation of Clive Exton screenplay and direction of Hickox, noting the earlier TV adaptation in 1968, and differences between the stage play and the screenplay.
the 22-min Act Of Character – Rosie White On The Inimitable Identities Of Beryl Reid, appreciation of Reid, her long career as a character actor, her preference for character actor work, her early career doing celebrity impersonations before developing her own comic characters, and a wonderful overview of her career on TV and in film, including her transgressive turn in Sloane.
But wait, there's more! We get a 10-min Archival Locations Featurette With Richard Dacre, he visits the graveyard from the opening of the film, much changed, and other locations around the area. It's quite detailed with lots of history to accompany the sights. he also gets into the distinctive pink Pontiac Parisienne convertible, which has a celebrity pedigree, once belonging to Mickey Finn of glam-rockers T.Rex, who sold it to Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd.
The last of the featurettes is the 10-min Threads Of Desire: Costuming And Sexuality In Entertaining Mr. Sloane – Video Essay By Costume Historian Elissa Rose, a well-stitched appreciation of the costuming seen in the film, offering a breakdown of the fashions, including the dandy dude look, the mono-kinis, the candy pink Cadillac, that distinctive and of course that camel leather chauffeur outfit,,. the last of the extras is a 3-min Trailer.
The single-disc release arrives in a black keeepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, a vintage movie poster design, featuring the original illustrated movie poster. This comes housed inside a very stylish and sharp-looking Side-Loading Rigid Slipcase, not unlike the slipcase used for their release of Scala!. the artwork for the slipcase featuring an artwork that looks to be based one of the original movie posters, a tasty phallic but of business with a spot-gloss elements.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Film Historian Nathaniel Thompson And Orton Scholar Dr. Emma Parker
Archival Interview With Actor Peter McEnery (9:28)
- All My Sloanes – 60 Years Of Joe Orton's Mr. Sloane, Featuring Malcolm McDowell And Maxwell Caulfield (27:36)
- Archival Interview With John Lahr, Author Of Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography Of Joe Orton (45:00)
- Archival Interview With Leonie Orton Remembering Her Brother Joe (27:42)
- Ortonesque – Screenwriter David McGillivray On The Lasting Influence Of Joe Orton (17:35)
- Act Of Character – Rosie White On The Inimitable Identities Of Beryl Reid (22.29)
- Archival Locations Featurette With Richard Dacre (10:14)
- Threads Of Desire: Costuming And Sexuality In ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE – Video Essay By Costume Historian Elissa Rose (10:01)
- Trailer (3:02)
Screenshots:
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