Movie: Tom Jones

Release Date: September 29, 1963

Director: Tony Richardson

Starring: Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith, Edith Evans, Joan Greenwood, Diane Cilento, George Divine, David Tomlinson

Personal History: Never Watched Before

Rating: 5.5 Oscars out of 10

Going in blind to this movie, I was at least excited for the music. I mean, “It’s Not Unusual” and “What’s New Pussycat?” are great songs. Sadly this movie was not a biopic of that singer.

Nominated for ten Academy Awards and winning four including Best Picture, ‘Tom Jones’ was a moderate hit both critically and commercially when it was released. Based on a 1749 novel by Henry Fielding, the plot revolves around the story of a young man, the women who love him and the one woman he truly loves. Not having seen it before until now, I was quite surprised that this was the movie that the Academy deemed ‘best’ of that year.

Billed as a comedy, ‘Tom Jones’ is an offbeat, weird and quirky movie. It is a narrated tale that breaks the fourth wall, has odd fades and blackouts to end scenes and incorporates a lot of silliness to tell its story. That silliness includes a chase scene a la Benny Hill. As much of a fan I am of odd and quirky, British humor sometimes gets lost on me. As blasphemous as it is to some people, I am not a fan of Monty Python-esque humor. Not saying that this film is anything like Monty Python, it is just that like those shows and movies, I did not laugh once while I watched it.

The movie did keep my interest throughout thanks in part to the plot and the grand performance of its lead. Albert Finney portrayed Tom as a likable yet flawed individual with wit, charm and determination. He dominated each scene he was in and carried the movie with confidence. He was also not too bad to look at either. And although I didn’t laugh, I did care what happened to Tom and was intrigued by the what, why and how of the simple and soap opera like storyline he was a part of.

‘Tom Jones,’ I guess, is a decent movie, but the fact that it’s a Best Picture winner still baffles me. I have not seen any of the other films it was pitted against in that category, including ‘Cleopatra,’ so I can only really judge it on its own merits. Comedies rarely win Best Picture at the Oscars. The other ones that have (and that I have seen) made me laugh. ‘Tom Jones,’ not so much.

Now I just need to wait for that movie about the “She’s a Lady” and “Sex Bomb” singer.