Entertaining Mr Sloane – 1970 | 94 mins | Comedy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Adapted from acclaimed playwright Joe Orton’s controversial play, director Douglas Hickox brings to the screen a mixture of murder, homosexuality, nymphomania and sadism cloaked in the blackest of comedy. Joe Orton’s claustrophobic black comedy which first appeared in 1964 retains an underlying degree of pathos but its transition to the screen proves to be an uneven and inevitably stagy affair. Beryl Reid’s gives a memorable performance as the middle-aged, flabby, arch nymphet hazily pining for a lost love.

‘Entertaining Mr. Sloane’ tells the story of a lonely suburban lady (Beryl Reid) and her closeted homosexual sibling (Harry Andrews), who are so enamoured of a superficial blonde-haired young man (Peter McEnery) with a murky past. They take him in as a lodger and turn the other cheek when he murders their father (Alan Webb). Both blackmail Sloane by threatening to tell the police what happened unless he consents to make up an outlandish ménage-a-trois in which he becomes a prisoner of desire.