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Trailer—Tom Jones

Tom Jones

If you cannot enjoy this movie, you have no relish for life and comedy and the human spirit. Albert Finney and Suzannah York are a delightful couple as Tom and his one love Sophie. One of the great things about the movie is the comments to the audience by Tom. The technique is not new (see The Road Movies), but it is used to great comic effect. And the voice-over narrator enhances all the action. If you don't know the story, Tom Jones is about a 'bastard' boy trying to make his way in the 1700's world of England. The story is delightful through, with the requisite villains, 'fallen' and lusty women, sword fights and some amazing coincidences. Everything about the movie is delightful, with great production values and an excellent cast. If you haven't seen this movie, please do so. I don't see how you can not enjoy it from beginning to end.

How on earth did Tom Jones win the Academy Award for Best Picture? This movie plays out like a silly, second-rate BBC sitcom, and it came out the same year as such iconic films as The Great Escape, How the West Was Won, Cleopatra, Charade, Bye Bye Birdie, The Birds, Dr. No and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The storytelling is somewhat creative, but the acting is corny, the music is annoying and the pacing is all over the place. It wasn't easy to find this movie, and it's probably because everyone knows Tom Jones is better off being forgotten.

Finney is terrific as Fielding's fun-loving, irresponsible hero, and is ably supported by a game cast. Richardson's direction is wonderfully inventive, using all kinds of cinematic tricks to make the story come alive. The asides to the viewers are hilarious, as in the blithe shrug Mrs. Waters gives to the audience when she is told that the man she bedded may be her long-lost son. The first half hour or so is rather uninvolving but things really get going with the exciting deer hunting scene. The sensual and funny dinner scene between Tom and Mrs. Waters is justly famous. The score by John Addison perfectly complements the lunacy.

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!

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.

So fun. I adore this thing. It's a marvelous costume comedy replete with hilar. It's beautiful to look at and delightful to know, a thing of beauty. In 18th century England a foundling baby is adopted by the landed gentleman who...hold on to your hat...finds him IN HIS BED! As the years go on he and the squire develop a real love for each other as if they were proper father and son, and that son is Tom Jones. As a brand new adult, through nefarious means, he is tossed out on his own. Thus begin his adventures. When he hits London he goes through love affairs, brawls and near misses. And all the girls fall for Tom Jones.