The Loved One (MOD) "Warner Bros."

The Loved One (MOD) "Warner Bros."The funeral business gets a giant raspberry in this wickedly wacky, resplendently ridiculous farce based on Evelyn Waugh's macabre comic masterpiece and directed with inspired verve by Tony Richardson (Tom Jones). But the American way of death isn't the film's only target: sex, greed, religion and mother love are also in the crosshairs of its satirical shots. Robert Morse plays a bemused would be poet who gets entangled with an unctuous cemetery

Cheyenne was co-written by novelist Alan LeMay

Kid Millions) directs

musicality and clever repartee

as the affable grifting gambler Bret Maverick

sympathetic supporting role

And each looks like a million

and all is smooth until the loyal pals become distracted by local coeds and their own attempts to avoid disciplinary action in this "distinguished piece of fresh comedy" (Daily Variety)

Margaret O'Brien and more

their maniac secret weapon

grudgingly and fitfully

an acclaimed Broadway reading of Steven Vincent Benet's poem

New Mexico townie who teams up with the drifter