Tom Jones (1963)

This was easily the latest Academy Best Picture I hadn't seen. Partly I'd put it off because it's not so popular as Best Pictures go. It also took a long time to come to DVD. This edition, at least, was released within the last year.

No, it has nothing to do with the singer of the same name. Based on an 18th-century novel, the story follows a literal bastard of questionable heritage (played by Albert Finney in adulthood) nevertheless raised as a lord's son. He becomes quite the Don Juan, tho he does have an eye toward one woman in particular, Sophie (Susannah York), against her father's permission. The era of duels is not a relatively safe time for one such as Tom....

I haven't given many details above because it's pretty episodic and, as I perceived it, few important events happen in the first half. (The filmmakers did cut a bit to get down to 128 minutes.) What can you expect from a carefree sybarite? It's just one conquest after another—until he encounters a conflict that he can't escape shortly. He's not the only larger-than-life personality around.

I could say it's not very funny, but looking over my blog reveals that cinematic comedies rarely do much for me anyway, so I'll have to be more specific. In this case, the problem seems to be the age of the humor: It's a rather hackneyed brand of ribaldry. I like it a little better when I compare it to Shakespeare. Heck, many of the characters have silly names that wouldn't look out of place in a Shakespeare comedy.

Director Tony Richardson made some offbeat choices to enhance the comedy. The opening scene, for instance, is played as a silent film despite the color. Later, we get on and off narration, occasional freeze frames, and other elements inspired by the French new wave. For me, the quirks are neither charming nor jarring; they just break even.

Adventure, in my experience, ages much better than comedy. There aren't a whole lot of adventurous moments herein, but I found myself pretty engaged whenever Tom faced off with a hostile man or group. Oddly enough, the most exciting scene involves a deer hunt, with horsemen struggling not to get left behind. That scene, more than any other, shows off some of the finest cinematography techniques available at the time. OK, it gets dwarfed by the previous year's Lawrence of Arabia, but let's face it: That was one tough act to follow.

That said, TJ was not nominated for cinematography. It still got four Oscars and six other nominations, the latter being mostly for acting. No other film can boast three Best Supporting Actress nominations. Perhaps they crowded each other, or perhaps the comedic nature got in the way of them winning.

According to one of the included documentary shorts (another good reason to have waited for the DVD), TJ helped usher in a new era in British cinema. Instead of picking up where LoA left off, the studios were getting into less serious, more mainstream-oriented works like A Hard Day's Night and Goldfinger. I'll let you decide whether that was for the best.

TJ kinda deserves its reputation as the weakest so-called Best Picture of the '60s. On an emotional level, I do prefer it to Midnight Cowboy and possibly to one or more of the musicals, which I haven't seen in a while. But I don't recommend making time for it unless you're big on educating yourself. If you want an award-winning comedy from around that time, try The Apartment.