Tom Jones

Albert Finney - Tom Jones
Susannah York - Sophie Western
Hugh Griffith - Squire Western
Edith Evans - Miss Western
Joan Greenwood - Lady Bellaston
Diane Cilento - Molly Seagram
James Cairncross - Inn Keeper
George A. Cooper - Fitzpatrick
George Devine - Squire Allworthy
Lynn Redgrave - Susan
David Tomlinson - Lord Fellamar
David Warner - Blifil

Tony Richardson’s costumed historical work Tom Jones was far removed from the contemporary provincial scene of his earlier pictures. From Henry Fielding's magnificent eighteenth-century novel of the adventures of a lively young man born on the wrong side of the blanket. His hero was played by Albert Finney with verve and energy. It is a bawdy, romping film with great gusts of lascivious humour, its stately homes run amok by pigs, its comic squire falling under his horse as he tries to spur it into action, its lovers munching apples in a sexually inflammatory manner. The cast, particularly Hugh Griffith's Squire Western and Edith Evans's Miss Western, performed in the spirit of the work, that of a promiscuous charade, always entertaining and visually interesting thanks to Lassally's camera work, but marred as before by the intrusion of jump cuts, freeze frames, speeded-up movement, titles over dialogue scenes and actors addressing the audience directly - in short the whole bag of fashionable self-indulgent tricks. In particular, a lengthy stag hunt sequence loses itself because it turns into a crude piece of anti-blood sport propaganda.

As a film Tom Jones had an interesting history, failing to get an initial circuit booking. Finally, United Artists came to the rescue and played it at the London Pavilion, where it proceeded to break records. When it was eventually given a proper release it proved to be one of 1963's biggest box-office successes and went on to collect Academy Awards for best picture, direction, screenplay and music score.