The film Tony Richardson made of Henry Fielding’s picaresque 18th-century novel is entertaining, but could and should have been better. Richardson became famous directing John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger,” first on stage, then in the 1958 film with Richard Burton. Richardson also directed the film (with Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates) of Osborne’s “The Entertainer” (1960), and two other gritty and overwrought films about lower-class Britons, “A Taste of Honey” with Rita Tushingham in 1961 and “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” with Tom Courtenay in the title role in 1962.

Neither Richardson nor Osborne, the leaders of an “Angry Young Man” movement in England, displayed a sensibility remotely kindred to the genial Fielding’s. Where Fielding was bemused by the ways of the society in which he lived, Osborne and Richardson were contemptuous of the landed gentry of any era (or, arguably, were contemptuous of the whole human race). Surely the two connived in the vulgarization. The excessively jerky editing probably cannot be blamed on Osborne. The blame for it can be shared by Richardson and film-editor Tony Gibbs (who went on to perpetrate the editing of “Dune”).

The ugliness of the film is, no doubt, intentional. It is fully justified in the hunt (of a fawn rather than a fox), and perhaps also for the city street scenes, but a little visual pleasure and some more light would have been helpful. And a lighter heart, too!

The actors have little opportunity to develop their characters. It is lucky for the viewer that the Westerns (Hugh Griffith as the squire, Edith Evans as his visiting unmarried sister, and Susannah York as his daughter) are able to make their mark nearly instantaneously. A sensual but astonishingly innocent young Albert Finney looks the part, but has no chance to develop the title character in the madcap cutting away. Especially because after “Tom Jones” Albert Finney quickly became bloated all-too-knowing, and a bully not all that far from Squire Western; it is very regrettable that his performance was not allowed to unfold and be preserved.

The high point, what is most remembered, is the scene in which Tom and Mrs. Wilkins (played by Joyce Redman) consume a large supper while intensely ogling each other put things in their mouths. Although a cliché 20th-century image of Merrie Olde England and probably inspired by Charles Laughton’s Henry VIII, the cutting back and forth between Redman and Finney is one of the few sustained developments in the film.

Finney was nominated for an best actor Academy Award, along with supporting acting nominations for Griffith, Redman, Evans, and Diane Cilento’s Molly. The latter two (instead of Susannah York) are baffling to me. Evans was doing a parody of herself (she was so much better in “The Importance of Being Earnest” or “The Whisperers” or “The Queen of Spades”). And Cilento did nothing at all out of the ordinary. None of the five won. (Finney and Evans won British Academy Awards, BTW.)

Although blame for that also lies with Richardson and Osborne, they both received Academy Awards, and “Tom Jones” was voted “best picture.” (Although 1963 was not the greatest of years, Fellini was nominated best director for “8 1/2” and Martin Ritt for “Hud.” If I could cast a retrospective vote, it would be for the former.)

Richardson went on to adapt a book more akin to his sarcastic temperament. For me “The Loved One” (1965) is his most satisfying film, followed by his 1969 film of Nabokov’s “Laughter in the Dark.” Later still he filmed the adaptation of “The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) and his final film “Blue Sky” (1994) earned Jessica Lange her second Academy Award. I don’t think that the promise of his working-class English films was fulfilled, but he produced some relatively interesting later work (I’d include the 1982 film with Jack Nicholson “The Border” to those name). For my money, John Osborne did not.



Recommended: Yes

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