Tom Jones is a 1963 British adventure comedy film, an adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), starring Albert Finney as the titular hero. It was one of the most critically acclaimed and popular comedies of its time,^[1] winning four Academy Awards. The film was directed by Tony Richardson and the screenplay was adapted by playwright John Osborne. The film is notable for its unusual comic style: the opening sequence is performed in the style of a silent movie, and characters sometimes break the fourth wall, often by looking directly into the camera and addressing the audience, and going so far as to have the character of Tom Jones suddenly appearing to notice the camera and covering the lens with his hat.

Plot[link]

The story begins with a silent film sequence during which the good Squire Allworthy (George Devine) returns home after a lengthy stay in London and discovers a baby in his bed. Thinking that his barber, Mr. Partridge (Jack MacGowran), and one of his servants, Jenny Jones (Joyce Redman), have "birthed" the infant out of lust, the squire banishes them and chooses to raise little Tom Jones as if he were his own son.

Tom (Albert Finney) grows up to be a lively young man whose good looks and kind heart make him very popular with the opposite sex. However, he truly loves only one woman, the gentle Sophie Western (Susannah York), who returns his passion. Sadly, Tom is stigmatized as a "bastard" and cannot wed a young lady of her high station. Sophie, too, must hide her feelings while her aunt (Edith Evans) and her father, Squire Western (Hugh Griffith) try to coerce her to marry a more suitable man - a man whom she hates.

This young man is Blifil (David Warner, in his film debut), the son of the Squire's widowed sister Bridget (Rachel Kempson). Although he is of legitimate birth, he is an ill-natured fellow with plenty of hypocritical 'virtue' but none of Tom's warmth, honesty, or high spirits. When Bridget dies unexpectedly, Blifil intercepts a letter which his mother intended for her brother's eyes only. What this letter contains is not revealed until the end of the movie; however, after his mother's funeral, Blifil and his two tutors, Mr. Thwackum (Peter Bull) and Mr. Square (John Moffatt), join forces to convince the squire that Tom is a villain. Allworthy gives Tom a small cash legacy and sorrowfully sends him out into the world to seek his fortune.

In his road-traveling odyssey, Tom is knocked unconscious while defending the good name of his beloved Sophie and robbed of his legacy. He also flees from a jealous Irishman who falsely accuses him of having an affair with his wife, engages in deadly swordfights, meets his alleged father and his alleged mother, a certain Mrs. Waters, whom he saves from an evil Redcoat Officer, and later beds the same Mrs. Waters. In a celebrated scene, Tom and Mrs. Waters sit opposite each other in the dining room of the Upton Inn, wordlessly consuming an enormous meal while gazing lustfully at each other.

Meanwhile, Sophie runs away from home soon after Tom's banishment to escape the attentions of the loathed Blifil. After narrowly missing each other at the Upton Inn, Tom and Sophie arrive separately in London. There, Tom attracts the attention of Lady Bellaston (Joan Greenwood), a promiscuous noblewoman over 40 years of age. She is rich, beautiful, and completely amoral, though it is worth noting that Tom goes to her bed willingly and is generously rewarded for his services. Eventually, Tom ends up at Tyburn Gaol, facing a boisterous hanging crowd after two blackguardly agents of Blifil frame him for robbery and attempted murder. Allworthy learns the contents of the mysterious letter: Tom is not Jenny Jones's child, but Bridget's illegitimate son and Allworthy's nephew. Furthermore, since Blifil knew this, concealed it, and tried to destroy his half-brother, he is now in disgrace and disinherited. Allworthy uses this knowledge to get Tom a pardon, but Tom has already been conveyed to the gallows; his hanging is begun, but is interrupted by Squire Western, who cuts him down and takes him to Sophie. Tom now has permission to court Sophie, and all ends well with Tom embracing Sophie with Squire Western's blessing.

In its original release, the film ran 2 hours and 37 minutes.

Cast[link]

• Albert Finney as Tom Jones
• Susannah York as Sophie Western
• Hugh Griffith as Squire Western
• Edith Evans as Miss Western
• Joan Greenwood as Lady Bellaston
• Diane Cilento as Molly Seagrim
• George Devine as Squire Allworthy
• David Tomlinson as Lord Fellamar
• Rosalind Atkinson as Mrs. Millar
• Wilfrid Lawson as Black George
• Rosalind Knight as Mrs. Fitzpatrick
• Jack MacGowran as Partridge
• Freda Jackson as Mrs. Seagrim
• David Warner as Blifil
• Joyce Redman as Mrs. Waters/Jenny Jones
• James Cairncross as Parson Supple
• Rachel Kempson as Bridget Allworthy
• Peter Bull as Thwackum
• Angela Baddeley as Mrs. Wilkins
• George A. Cooper as Fitzpatrick
• Jack Stewart as MacLachlan
• Patsy Rowlands as Honour
• John Moffatt as Square
• Avis Bunnage as Innkeeper
• Mark Dignam as Lieutenant
• Michael Brennan as Jailer at Newgate
• Lynn Redgrave as Susan
• Redmond Phillips as Lawyer Dowling
• Julian Glover as Northerton
• Ray Austin as Henchman / stunt Director

Production[link]

Bridgwater's Castle Street was used as a location in several scenes. Bryanston Films hesitated to make the film in colour and shortly went bankrupt. The film was financed by American production money through United Artists.^[2]

The production suffered from more than the usual disasters, near-disasters and squabbles attending films shot on location in English weather. Tony Richardson was dissatisfied with the final product, notwithstanding its acclaim by others. In his autobiography^[3] Richardson wrote:

"I felt the movie to be incomplete and botched in much of its execution. I am not knocking that kind of success — everyone should have it — but whenever someone gushes to me about Tom Jones, I always cringe a little inside."

Cinematographer Walter Lassally has said^[4] that in his opinion the location unit got on very well together under the circumstances, and that the experience was satisfying. He thought Richardson rather lost his way in post-production, endlessly fixing what was not really broken.

Releases[link]

The film was reissued in 1989; for this release, Richardson trimmed the film by seven minutes.^[1] The original full-length version is now once again available on DVD.

Awards and nominations[link]

Academy Awards[link]

Wins^[5]

• Best Picture
• Best Director
• Best Substantially Original Score (John Addison)
• Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium

Nominations

• Best Actor - Albert Finney
• Best Supporting Actor - Hugh Griffith
• Best Supporting Actress - Diane Cilento
• Best Supporting Actress - Dame Edith Evans
• Best Supporting Actress - Joyce Redman
• Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Ralph W. Brinton, Ted Marshall, Jocelyn Herbert, Josie MacAvin).

Tom Jones is the only film in the history of the Academy in which three actresses were nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar.^[6] All three nominations were unsuccessful, however, as the Academy Award in this category went to Margaret Rutherford for her role in The V.I.P.s.

Ilya Lopert accepted the Academy Award for Best Picture on behalf of the producers. Upon Lopert's death the award was passed on to Finney, who played the title role.

BAFTA Awards[link]

Wins

• Best Film from any source
• Best British Film
• Best British Screenplay (John Osborne)

Nominations

• Best British Actor (Albert Finney)
• Best British Actor (Hugh Griffith)
• Best British Actress (Edith Evans)

Golden Globe Awards[link]

Wins

• Best English-Language Foreign Film
• Best Motion Picture - Comedy
• Most Promising Newcomer - Male (Albert Finney) (tied with Stathis Giallelis for America, America (1963) and Robert Walker Jr. for The Ceremony (1963).

Nominations

• Best Motion Picture Actor - Musical/Comedy (Albert Finney)
• Best Motion Picture Director (Tony Richardson)
• Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith)
• Best Supporting Actress (Joan Greenwood)

Other awards[link]

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

• Best Actor (Albert Finney)
• Best Director (Tony Richardson)
• Best Picture

Venice Film Festival

• Volpi Cup: Best Actor (Albert Finney)
• Golden Lion: Tony Richardson (nom)

Writers' Guild of Great Britain

• Best British Comedy Screenplay (John Osborne)

Grammy Awards

• Best Original Score from a Motion Picture (John Addison)

See also[link]

• BFI Top 100 British films

References[link]

External links[link]

• Tom Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Jones at the TCM Movie Database
• Tom Jones at AllRovi
• Tom Jones at Rotten Tomatoes

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Look up Tom Jones in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Tom Jones may refer to:

• Tom Jones (singer) (born 1940), Welsh singer
  • Tom Jones (TV series), a 1980-1981 television series starring Tom Jones
• Tom Jones (Australian politician) (born 1924), Australian politician representing Collie-Wellington district
• Tom Jones (baseball) (1877–1923), American first baseman in Major League Baseball
• Tom Jones (bishop) (1903–1972), Anglican bishop of Willochra in Australia
• Tom Jones (cricketer) (1901–1935), Welsh cricketer
• Tom Jones (footballer born 1899) (1899–1978), Welsh international football fullback who played for Manchester United
• Tom Jones (footballer born 1964), football midfielder who played in the 1980s and 1990s with Swindon Town and Reading
• Tom Jones (racing driver) (born 1943), American racing driver
• Tom Jones (trade unionist) (1822–1916), British trade union activist
• Tom Jones (writer) (born 1928), lyricist of musical theater
• Tom Jones (wrestler) (born 1982), British wrestler

In media, Tom Jones may refer to:

• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, a novel by Henry Fielding published in 1749
• Tom Jones (film) an Academy Award winning 1963 film based on the Henry Fielding novel
• Tom Jones (1917 film), a 1917 British comedy film
• Tom Jones (opera), a 1907 British comic opera also based on Fielding's novel
• Tom Jones (Philidor), an 1765 opera by Philidor based on Fielding's novel

See also[link]

• Thomas Jones (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Susannah York
Born	Susannah Yolande Fletcher (1939-01-09)9 January 1939 Chelsea, London, England, UK
Died	15 January 2011(2011-01-15) (aged 72) London, England, UK
Cause of death	Multiple myeloma
Residence	London, England
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	White British
Education	Marr College
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1959–2010
Spouse	Michael Wells (1960–76, divorced)
Children	Sasha Wells Orlando Wells
Parents	Simon Fletcher (deceased) Joan Hamilton (née Bowring)

Susannah York (9 January 1939^[1] – 15 January 2011) was an English film, stage and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)^[2] and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. She won best actress for Images at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. In 1991 she was appointed an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[2] Her appearances in various hit films of the 1960s formed the basis of her international reputation,^[3] and an obituary in The Telegraph characterised her as "the blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips who epitomised the sensuality of the swinging Sixties".^[4]

Early life[link]

York was born Susannah Yolande Fletcher in Chelsea, London, in 1939, the younger daughter of Simon William Peel Vickers Fletcher (1910–2002), a merchant banker and steel magnate, and his first wife, the former Joan Nita Mary Bowring – they married in 1935 and divorced prior to 1943.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]} Her maternal grandfather was Walter Andrew Bowring, CBE, a British diplomat who served as Administrator of Dominica (1933–1935); she was a great-great-granddaughter of political economist Sir John Bowring.^{[4][6][11][12][13]} York had an elder sister, as well as a half-brother, Eugene Xavier Charles William Peel Fletcher, from her father's second marriage to Pauline de Bearnez de Morton de La Chapelle.^{[5][14][15][16][17]}