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47 comments in total

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53 out of 64 people found the following comment useful :-
Wonderful, even 37 years later, 4 January 2004

Author: kadar from Seattle

This was a great film in its time, and is still a great one today. Well-directed, well-acted, well-shot, great soundtrack, and based on a splendid literary vehicle.

It's frustrating to see so much uninformed voting and so many uninformed remarks on this otherwise wonderful site; I guess its inevitable since anyone can post anything. But I would like to point out that Tom Jones did not sleep with his mother as erroneously alleged, and that Albert Finney, 26 or 27 years old at the time of shooting this film, clearly did not look too old for his part.

I haven't read the book(s), but from the film it's obvious that Dickens was much indebted to Fielding, using his amazing invention as a convoluted plot model (and perhaps a character-naming model) for many of his works.

Go rent this film after seeing Finney in the currently playing Big Fish -- it's great to see him do so well in such very different films made in different millenia, nearly a full professional lifetime apart.

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40 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
Lyric beauty, bawdy humor and adventure set to celluloid and music., 30 August 1999
Author: H.J.

In 1963 two of the most important productions in the history of movie making were released. The first was: "Cleopatra" with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, a cast as long as the Manhattan telephone directory and a budget bigger than the combined egos of the stars. "Cleopatra" was a total disaster. It has no redeeming quality that I know of. It is therefore important for embodying in one film, nearly everything that you can do wrong in making a movie. It is a movie that you must see if you are ever to understand what a truly good film really is. The second was: "Tom Jones" with Albert Finney and Susannah York, shot with rented equipment and costumes on the streets of London with a supporting cast of brilliant British ensemble players and extras who stood-in just to get in a film. Tom Jones is simply one of the best motion pictures of all time, for my money, The Best from Literature.

John Osborne who wrote the screen play produced a marvelous vehicle, but the genius of "Tom Jones" is Tony Richardson. He moves the actors and the story about the screen with a bawdy grace and earthy gentility that paints action and raucous laughter and beauty across one another with an even hand. It is a glimpse of antiquity so close and real that we can nearly touch it, and it makes us want to. (Though to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we'd care for the smell of it.)

"Tom Jones" is a low budget, low tech, high quality film that must win the award for the "Most with the Least." The photography is beautiful, not because it used a dozen half million dollar cameras, it is beautiful because it is good photography. The acting wins out, and casts of thousands would only serve to clutter the stage. See this film whenever, wherever and as often as you possibly can.

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41 out of 51 people found the following comment useful :-
Outstanding, 1 April 2005
Author: jlon from Dublin

Finest of '60s British movies. DVD review.

A bastard (Jones) falls for York but their rich families keep them apart.

Still fresh movie that outshines anything from this year. Rare Oscar-winning movie that actually deserved its award - unlike most other winning movies this one never takes itself seriously. Inspired countless inferior rip-offs that couldn't match this movie. Parody of the old silent movies with loads of wipes, zooms, piano music, sped-up scenes, fade-to-blacks, and actors addressing the audience. Most scenes look like they were done in one take, there's no pretentious direction, actors wink and shrug at the camera, there's a fantastic deer-hunt sequence, beautiful actresses, a fast pace, and great performances. Watch this brilliant movie to see how it should be done.

Tom Jones is one of the best movies from the '60s.

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34 out of 40 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the greatest farces of all time, 29 April 2000
Author: Eunice Muir (eunice-4) from Lake Helen, Florida

Tome Jones came out of the wonderful 60's when all the stuffy conventions of British theater, film and music were turned upside down. I first saw this film while stationed in Wiltshire in the Royal Air Force, and having grown up in the industrial West Riding of Yorkshire, my eyes had only recently been opened to the staggering beauty of the English countryside.

Tom Jones represented that unspoiled English countryside to me. I could smell the hay, the wildflowers and the livestock. Never mind that unless you were rich it was serf labor, I saw England through a wonderful fantasy of a film. The action never stopped. This movie was just hilarious from beginning to end. No glossing over the crude realities of country life - this was a period when the poor folk shared their hovels with the chickens and other small animals, when sex was raw, albeit punished on Sundays, and when the local gentry had their way with the wenches.

Rarely has there been such a belly laugh of a movie. Laugh until the tears roll down your face.

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32 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
Stand and Deliver!, 8 July 2000
Author: Ben Calmes from NAS Ream Field

A fun and fresh screen adaption of British writer Henry Fielding's 18th Century novel of the same name, made at the threshold of the swinging (19)Sixties. Like the original story's French counterpart (Les Liaisons Dangereuses=Dangerous Liaisons), at its heart is a mannered metropolitan love triangle.

But before we arrive in the heart of London the stage is set amidst the lush green English countryside in Summer. Here we first meet the protagonist, Tom Jones, played by Albert Finney in his most youthful bloom, and his extended family representing every facet of post-Glorious Revolution England.

An incorrigible ne'er-do-well, Tom's genuine love for his neighbor Squire Alworthy's daughter Sophie (a very lovely Susannah York), takes him to the heart of fashionable London society in a series of comedic wrong-turns and misunderstandings. Here he becomes embroiled in the games of the jaded aristocrat Lady Bellaston played by Joan Greenwood. Greenwood steals the show as the original Mrs. Robinson and, through her machinations, Tom is led to the gallows. But at the last minute...

Throughout the movie is paced with a modern sense of realism, made effective by hand-held camera sequences and the quick editing of Antony Gibbs. Old-fashioned film techniques are used effectively with eye-to-the-camera realism, and convey an up-to-date feel. There are moments of beauty as well as comedy in this very satisfying entertainment. The cast is stellar with many familiar names--Hugh Griffith, Rachel Kempson, David Warner (in his first movie), the settings realistic, and the the musical score a perfect fit. A great time overall!

An interesting note, supposedly this is the last movie seen by John F. Kennedy (in a White House screening) before he was assassinated.

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26 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
I fell off my chair!, 5 September 2000

Author: Wendy Darling from Atlanta, GA

While my mother claims this is a "guy movie," I'm not a guy and find it one of the funniest, most charming movies ever made. The narration, music and just plain spunky tone of this movie makes it a unique piece -- you really DO have to see it to understand what it's all about! I highly recommend this movie -- as well as the book, which was published in 1749 but is just as funny today and highly readable, not "quaint" at all!

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26 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
it gives the sense of the joy of living through the movie media at the highest level, 10 April 1999

Author: Alessandro Bernardini (albernie@tor.it) from Alessandria, Italy

"Tom Jones" is a movie adaptation of the classic Eighteenth century novel masterpiece of Henry Fielding made up by the greatest contemporary British playwriter John Osborne and directed by one of the main film directors of English Free Cinema, Tony Richardson. This film came at end of this golden period of the English Cinema in the sixties and it is the highest moment of this cinema. "Tom Jones" shows in the person of Tom Jones (the masterly Albert Finney) the point of view of the angry young man looking to the stupidity and the hypocrisies of the Eighteenth century society, which resembles our times. It is not at all just a funny film, even if some scenes are extremely funny and are some classics in the history of cinema, famous like the one in which Tom eating a rich supper with his woman is really looking like eating her with the eyes. "Tom Jones" is the adventurous hystory of a modern hero, who finally conquers his true love, after any kind of trouble. This is an highly cinematographic film, e.g. the movement of the camera gives itself the idea of happiness in the scenes of love in the country of Tom and Sophie (the beautiful and greatest Susannah York), the drama of the situation in which Tom risk to be hanged or the funniness in the bawdy scenes in the inn. In the beginning the film even outlines the beginning of the complex story using even the style of the silent cinema...Tom Jones/Albert Finney even also speaks directly to the public of the film reaching with his greatest originality an extreme level of funniness and pleasantness. The photography of the film resembles with its colours and views the landscapes of English painting of the Eighteenth century, like in Hogarth's pictures. The fox hunting scene is pictorially beautiful. The actors are all the best of the English theatre of that period and playing at their best, where theatre is so important and lively in England. Concluding, a film that gives the sense of the joy of living through the movie media at the highest level, it's a must to see even only this film, a masterpiece of the forgotten but greatest English film director, Tony Richardson. As Giancarlo Grazzini, the greatest Italian cinematographic critic of that time, wrote, it was the best film presented at the Film Festival of Venice, worthy of winning also the Golden Lion there and not just the Oscars!

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28 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Thirty Seven years later.......it remains a splendid piece of art, 27 December 2000

Author: Keith F. Hatcher from La Rioja, Spain

Just two hundred years after Henry Fielding's novel appeared, the theatre-actor-turned-cinema-director Sir Tony Richardson rounded up a few Shakespearean-trained prodigees, got John Addison to compose hectic clavichord accompaniment a little in the style of Handel operas and set all this against lush photography to produce one of the most hilarious films of the last five hundred years. Fielding's novel – which is a most definite recommendation – rather cynically but good-humouredly exposed mid-eighteenth century British hypocrisy at its best and the landed gentry's obsession for fox-hunting at its worst. Richardson directed all this a bit like an elderly Sir Thomas Beecham ('the important thing is we all start and stop together; nobody notices what happens in between') raising his baton in front of the London Symphony Orchestra: the result in both cases is astounding. Richardson conducts his piece at a tremendous pace, Addison's clavichord tripping along gaily so as to keep up the illusion, and visual sequences such as a young trouserless Albert Finney escaping out of a window, shinning down a tree and running off into the nocturnal depths of a beech forest, all combine to keep you breathlessly awaiting the next scene. Susannah York is just delicious, with that innocent facial beauty that raises heartbeats, especially in the latter parts; and Angela Baddely as Mrs. Wilkins and Diane Cilento as Molly play some great scenes. And some of the great scenes are worth telling...... Tom and Mrs. Wilkins enjoy a good roast with fruit, eating lusciously and lascivously, eating each other up with their sparkling eyes: this scene is hugely delightful. The other great scene is the fox-hunt: this alone puts the whole film into a special category: brilliant film-making, almost comparable to the famous chariot race in Ben Hur........ I loved this film 37 years ago, and recently had the luck to see it again: having doubled my years, I was just as enthralled and enraptured as the first time. A splendid piece of art.

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18 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
A New Sense of Moderism, 6 April 2005

Author: RARubin from United States

This is an adaptation of a large book, a Henry Fielding novel. In the early 1700's the growing middle class in Europe, especially in the British Empire, became literate. As an entertainment to get through the long hours of new leisure, novels flew from the printing presses. Tom Jones was a hit from the first. It was a bawdy tale with amusing detail. It is lucky that an experienced playwright like John Osborne was assigned the screenplay and double lucky that a fine director, Tony Richardson brought the tale to life.

Indeed, Richardson is a poet with the lush English countryside. Since much of the film depicts Tom Jones' amorous adventures in the grass with Molly Seagram, the peasant wench, on a skiff with the Squire's daughter, Sophie, in the tavern with Mrs.Wilkens, and in the suites of a countess, the bawdy adventures spin by as food shoots from the mouths of lovers. There are also duels, a misunderstanding about the linage of the Jones baby, and an unwanted suitor for the lovely Sophie, Susan York.

I saw this film as a teen in 1963 and it telegraphed a new sense of modernism and sexual freedom without pretense that is ironic since Fielding's story was hundreds of years old on the eve of the Beatles and the swinging London of the 60's.

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15 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Magnificent movie with four deserved Academy Award winner, 19 November 2005

Author: ma-cortes from Santander Spain

Tom Jones(Albert Finney) is a 18th century orphan who is adopted by an aristocrat but he lives his own life with mirth and freedom. The philander English lad has good heart and affinity for troubles and an eye for the ladies confronting amorous and bawdy adventures. His true love is Sophie(Susannah York) the daughter of a high-class rich owner(Hugh Griffith).

The picture is a lavish rendition of a classic novel by Henry Fielding with lots of entertainment and fun and it's plenty of satire,irony,comedy,tongue and cheek and amusement. Lively and jolly soundtrack by John Addison , author of numerous classics scores of the English Free Cinema. Film is very well directed by Tony Richardson who in 1977 made an attempt to return with similar character -Joseph Andrews- but the freshness,inspiration and magic had gone. It is followed by a sequel -The bawdy adventures of Tom Jones- an exploitive extension directed by Cliff Owen and with Arthur Lowe,Joan Collins and Trevor Howard. Tom Jones picture was undoubtedly the biggest year.The film obtained Academy Award in 1963 to the best film for United Artists, Director-Tony Richardson-, adapted screenplay-John Osborne- and original music-John Addison- and were nominated Albert Finney,Hugh Griffith,Diane Cilento,Joyce Redman and Edith Evans by their robustly agreeable characterization.Well worth watching.

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