Amazon.com Essentials:
Winner of four Academy Awards including best picture,
director, screenplay, and music, this 1963 adaptation of Henry
Fielding's classic
novel is a rousing, bawdy comedy about a young man's ribald
adventures in 18th-century England. Albert Finney is splendidly
hilarious in the title role of a charming womanizer who was discovered
as an abandoned infant in the bed of Squire Allworthy, a wealthy
landowner who named the child Tom Jones and raised him as his own. As
a young man, Tom yearns for the comely daughter (Susannah York) of a
neighboring squire, but his amorous adventures (including an extended
food orgy that becomes the film's funniest scene) lead him to London
and to a duel with a jealous husband. He's sentenced to hang, but fate
intervenes. A hit around the world, the film was expertly written by
noted playwright John Osborne, and Richardson uses a variety of
old-style movie techniques to heighten the lusty, good-natured
fun. Don't miss this one! --Jeff Shannon
