Entertaining Mr Sloane

Based on the controversial and award winning play by Joe Orton, this black comedy film from 1970 is a pure treat. Peter McEnery excels as the sleazy, sexy and morally bankrupt Mr. Sloane.

The topics involve murder, homosexuality, sadism and nymphomania, so don’t expect your average black comedy here!
The elderly and lonely Kath (Beryl Reid) lives with her brother Ed (Harry Andrews) and their slightly ‘eccentric’ father, called DaDa, in a little country-style mansion next to a graveyard. It’s at the graveyard that Kath (looking like a psychedelic techni-colour version of Bette Davis’ ‘Baby Jane Hudson’) makes the acquaintance of the dashing Mr. Sloane, who lazes about on top of a grave - sunbathing (as you do)! Instantly smitten, she invites him back to the house to become a lodger. While preparing tea, she introduces him to DaDa (Alan Webb), who works in the garden shed. Within minutes, he identifies Sloane as the same guy who, several years before, killed his boss. When Sloane puts up a mock-protest, DaDa stabs him in the leg with a sharp gardening tool. Meanwhile, Kath returns with tea and cakes and tells off her father for hurting Mr. Sloane, dismissing his claims that he is dangerous, and putting the incident down to the fact that her father no longer is quite right in the head.

Inside the house, she first nurses and then seduces Sloane, for whom everything is just a grotesque game. When brother Ed (a closet homosexual) turns up in his bright pink car, he at first disapproves of the idea of a new lodger. But upon seeing the almost naked Sloane spread out on the bed, his opinion changes quickly… and he too takes a shine to him. More precisely, he appoints Sloane as his personal chauffeur, and buys him a tight leather uniform that would give The Village People a run for their money.

As the ménage à trois continues, so do does the cat- and mouse game that Sloane plays with everyone in the house. He takes particular delight in playing Kath, who has fallen pregnant by him, against her increasingly jealous brother. Things take a turn when DaDa won’t let go of his accusations against Sloane… so he kills him, too,
after having him tormented first.
Kath and Ed take their revenge by forcing Sloane to ‘marry’ them both in a bizarre ceremony, thus keep him their personal slave and prisoner forever.

Director Douglas Hickox showed off his expertise in directing a terrific cast, and also in playing devil’s advocate to Ed’s (make that Harry Andrews’) closeted sexual orientation. Entertaining Mr. Sloane displays a firework of wit and filthy innuendos (not to mention double entendres) if ever there was one! Shame the DVD’s pack-shot artwork doesn’t do the film any justice.

The DVD has the ‘Trailer’ and ‘Joe Orton interview on the 1967 Eamonn Andrews show’ for its bonus material.