टॉम जोन्स

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.

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!

Mostly the reviews on IMDb can be relied on, but sometimes they just make no sense. Over upwards of a decade and many hundreds of visits I can recall no starker illustration than the truly unbelievable 6.8 given to Tom Jones. It is, simply, a masterpiece.

A brilliant story at the heart of it, of course, but brought to life with fantastic, innovative direction, including affectionate nods to the silents, extraordinary action sequences, unsurpassed breaches of the fourth wall ("Did you see her take it?"), uncommon acknowledgements of some of the grimmer realities of the era, and tour de force performances from the entire cast (who clearly relished every minute), centred of course on the sublime Albert Finney - one of the greats, never better - and the heart-stoppingly gorgeous Susannah York.

Tom Jones is one of the ultimate explorations and illustrations of the full potential of the medium: movies don't get better than this. Anyone who contributed to that risible score should hang their head in shame. Anyone else, watch Tom Jones. Then watch it again. And again.

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.

This was the period when French New Wave was supposedly reinventing cinema. Unfortunately, the French could only do so by citing Hollywood forms (mostly gangsters) and placing them in new contexts. That left lots of room for an intelligent Hollywood project to best them by exploiting itself. So much more could be done.

The rough form would be a contrast between the refined and the uncouth, between disciplined manner and unbridled lust, between old Hollywood presentation and the new. Thus, the uncouth merges with sex and the presentation used here.

That presentation form is at once hyperrealistic — hand-held verity, engagement with running horses, A specific film joke where Tom and Sophie follow each other riding animals, widely varying lighting schemes using found light, frequent direct dialog with the audience — and highly stylized "old" stuff: swordfights, wellworn plot closures, a typical love story but where the girl is halfway in the old and new worlds.

Make no mistake: the star of this is Suzanna York as our surrogate. Will we embrace this new manner of film-making, directly sensual and "real?" Of course we do, as much as no woman can refuse Tom

No serious watcher of film can omit this from their schedule. And it needs to be followed by "Barry Lyndon," and "Sex and Lucia."

Kubrick's project took this same story from the other side, the refined one. Its cinematography is lush and precise. But the project is one that contrasts nature (rather than raw sex acts) with foppish aristocracy (rather than general city society). But the intent is the same, to charm through images, just in Kubrick's case the images are aristocratic.

Medem's project is much more sophisticated, switching the dial so that the sex/repress, country/city, realistic/stylized image contrast is between experienced truth and written truth. But the same noir-like capricious fate is at work through copulation in Lucia as in Tom. The same idea as targeted woman, lovely desirable woman as the viewer's surrogate (and judge).

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.