NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Tom Jones (film)

Tom Jones was an international hit, British 1963 comedy film, and won the coveted Academy Award for Best Picture for 1963. 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... Airplane! is considered by some critics to be one of the funniest movies of all time. ...

The film was based on a famous semi-comic novel, the first truly popular novel written in the English language, by Henry Fielding in 1749. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (often known simply as Tom Jones) is a comic novel by Henry Fielding. ... Henry Fielding (April 22, 1707 â€“ October 8, 1754) was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humor and satirical prowess and as the author of the novel Tom Jones. ...

Plot

It tells the story of a young 18th century man who is taken into the household of a rich West-country gentleman as a foundling baby, and is raised as an almost legitimate gentleman. He grows up being the darling of the local girls, due to his good natured charm and appealing looks. A rather bawdy love-life with several women of mostly servant class status, lead him astray as a teen. He is handsome and totally likable. (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ...

The title character is found as a baby on Squire Allworthy's bed. Thinking that his barber and one of his servants, Jenny Jones, had "birthed" the infant out of careless lust, he banishes them, and chooses to raise baby Tom himself. Tom grows up to be a rougish, kind, and yet very decent fellow who adores, and is adored by the opposite sex. But he truly loves only one woman, the gentle Sophie Western, who of course, loves him madly. Sadly, Tom is stigmatized as a bastard, and cannot wed a young lady of her high station. There is another young man in the Allworthy family, named Blifil, who is supposed to be legitimate, having been the stepson of the Squire's sister Bridget, after the untimely death of her Husband. Soon, the hypocritical representatives of sobriety, including two of Tom's tutors and Allworthy's evil nephew, the geekish Blifil, twist the truth. Allworthy very sadly banishes Tom from his home with a small cash legacy, and sends him out into the world to seek his fortune. In his road-traveling odyssey, Tom beds a Mrs. Waters, has to escape from a jealous husband who accuses Tom of having an affair with his wife (he did not), has two deadly swordfights, meets his accused "father", saves Mrs. Waters from rape by an evil Redcoat Officer, and is bashed in the head by that officer and robbed of his small legacy. Soon he arrives in London and attracts the attention of a very sensual gentlewoman over 50 years of age. This is Lady Bellaston...rich, beautiful and completely unscrupulous. Eventually Tom winds up at Tyburn Gaol, facing a boistrous hanging crowd for a murderous assault on a still dying man. He is rescued in the nick of time... and cleared of any wrong doing, and all ends up well. Illegitimacy was a term in common use for the condition of being born of parents who were not validly married to one another; the legal term was bastardy. ...

Production

The entire London portion is richly textured with the grim authenticity of a Hogarth (18th century engraver/artist) illustration of the tacky street life in period London. Camera work was mobile to a degree unseen up to that point in feature films. Art direction, especially in the street scenes is perhaps the best dealing with the grubby side of that period...ever. Time magazine devoted a cover, 3 pages to the film, and simply raved about the singular greatness & innovation of the film.

The screenplay was adapted by John Osborne from Fielding's novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. The director is Tony Richardson. John James Osborne (December 12, 1929 â€“ December 24, 1994) was an English playwright. ... Tony Richardson (June 5, 1928 - November 14, 1991) was a British theatre and film director and producer. ...

Bridgwater's Castle Street was used as a location in several scenes. The statue of Admiral Robert Blake at Cornhill, Bridgwater, with St Marys Church in the background (1998). ...

Cinematography

The film is also noteworthy in that at several points, various characters break the fourth wall, look directly into the camera, and address the audience. It is said to be the last movie watched by John F. Kennedy. Some consider it to have one of the sexier eating scenes found in cinema. The fourth wall is the imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. ... John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 â€“ November 22, 1963), often referred to as John F. Kennedy, JFK or Jack Kennedy, was the 35th President of the United States. ...

Awards

This is one of the most admired films in British cinema, and is a classic film and comedy of the highest order, in the opinion of most who saw it originally in a theater setting. It is frequently included near the top in personal lists of a cinema devotee's 10 most favorite films...such is the charm and end to end entertainment quality of this matchless BEST PICTURE,Oscar winning film.

It won Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original(John Addison), Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. It was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Albert Finney), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Hugh Griffith), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Diane Cilento), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Dame Edith Evans), Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color. Academy Awards The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent film awards in the United States and most watched awards ceremony in the world. ... The Academy Award for Directing is an accolade given to the person that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences feels was best director of the past year. ... From Rule Sixteen of the Special Rules for The Music Awards Original Score: An original score is a substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer. ... John Addison (1920-1998) was a British composer. ... The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the awards are voted on by other people within the industry. ... The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. ... The Academy Award for Best Actor is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. ...

Cast

Albert Finney stars as the title character, Susannah York, is his true-love, Sophie Western, Hugh Griffith, her "wild man", but rich father, and Dame Edith Evans, is Squire Western's much older sister. Joan Greenwood, Joyce Redman and Diane Cilento. the sexy "Game Keeper's daughter" are also featured. Notably, David Tomlinson and a young David Warner (in his film début) also appear. Albert Finney is an English actor, born 9 May 1936 in Salford, Lancashire, England. ... Susannah York to the right together with Ilya Salkind on the set of Superman: The Movie, circa 1977 Susannah York (born January 9, 1942 in London, England as Susannah Yolande Fletcher) is a British actress. ... Hugh Emrys Griffith (May 30, 1912 – May 14, 1980) was a film actor. ... Dame Edith Mary Evans (February 8, 1888 - October 14, 1976) was a highly regarded British actress. ... Joan Greenwood (March 4, 1921 - February 27, 1987) was a British actress who was born in Chelsea and studied at RADA. Her husky voice was her trademark, and in 1995 she was #63 on Empire magazines list of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history. ... Joyce Redman (born December 9, 1918) is a British actress. ... Diane Cilento (born October 5, 1933 in Brisbane Queensland) is a theater and film actress. ... David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson (May 7, 1917 - June 24, 2000) was a British film actor. ... David Warner David Warner (born July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England) is a English actor who often plays sinister characters. ...

External link

Academy Award for Best Picture

1920s • Wings† • Sunrise† • The Broadway Melody†
1930s • All Quiet on the Western Front† • Cimarron† • Grand Hotel† • Cavalcade† • It Happened One Night • Mutiny on the Bounty • The Great Ziegfeld • The Life of Emile Zola • You Can't Take It with You • Gone with the Wind
1940s • Rebecca • How Green Was My Valley • Mrs. Miniver • Casablanca • Going My Way • The Lost Weekend • The Best Years of Our Lives • Gentleman's Agreement • Hamlet • All the King's Men
1950s • All About Eve • An American in Paris • The Greatest Show on Earth • From Here to Eternity • On the Waterfront • Marty • Around the World in Eighty Days • The Bridge on the River Kwai • Gigi • Ben-Hur
1960s • The Apartment • West Side Story • Lawrence of Arabia • Tom Jones • My Fair Lady • The Sound of Music • A Man for All Seasons • In the Heat of the Night • Oliver! • Midnight Cowboy
1970s • Patton • The French Connection • The Godfather • The Sting • The Godfather Part II • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest • Rocky • Annie Hall • The Deer Hunter • Kramer vs. Kramer
1980s • Ordinary People • Chariots of Fire • Gandhi • Terms of Endearment • Amadeus • Out of Africa • Platoon • The Last Emperor • Rain Man • Driving Miss Daisy
1990s • Dances with Wolves • The Silence of the Lambs • Unforgiven • Schindler's List • Forrest Gump • Braveheart • The English Patient • Titanic • Shakespeare in Love • American Beauty
2000s • Gladiator • A Beautiful Mind • Chicago • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King • Million Dollar Baby • Crash
†From 1927–1933, the Academy Awards did not follow a calendar year. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about actors, movies, television shows, television stars and video games. ... The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the awards are voted on by other people within the industry. ... Wings is a 1927 silent movie about fighter pilots during World War I (Charles Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen), who vie for the same girl (Clara Bow) directed by William Wellman. ... Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (aka Sunrise) is a 1927 American silent film directed by F.W. Murnau. ... The Broadway Melody is an early musical motion picture, released on 1 February 1929. ... All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1930 film directed by Lewis Milestone. ... Cimarron is a 1931 film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. ... Grand Hotel is a 1932 art deco movie, and is considered as a classic of the sort. ... Cavalcade is a historical view of English life from New Years Eve 1899 through 1933, from the point of view of of well-to-do Londoner residents Jane and Robert Marryot (played by Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook). ... It Happened One Night is a 1934 romantic comedy in which an elite socialite (Claudette Colbert) tries to get out from under her fathers thumb, and falls in with a rogue reporter (Clark Gable). ... Mutiny on the Bounty, based on the 1932 novel by Charles Nordhoff, is a 1935 film starring Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone. ... Categories: Movie stubs | 1936 films | Drama films | Musical films | Biographical films | Best Picture Oscar | Best Actress Oscar (film) ... The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 movie giving a biography of the famous French author Émile Zola. ... You Cant Take it With You was an important example of the category of end-of-depression heart warming movies made by Frank Capra in the 1930s. ... Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ... Rebecca is a 1940 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock as his first American project. ... How Green Was My Valley is 1941 film directed by John Ford and based on the Richard Llewellyn novel How Green Was My Valley. ... Mrs. ... This article is about the film. ... Going My Way is a 1944 film is a light-hearted comedy about a new young priest (Bing Crosby) taking over a parish from an established old veteran. ... The Lost Weekend is a 1945 motion picture directed by Billy Wilder for Paramount Pictures, starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman and Phillip Terry. ... The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 movie about three servicemen (an airman, a soldier, and a sailor) trying to piece their lives back together after coming back home from WWII. It is based on a novel by MacKinlay Kantor, Glory for Me. ... Gentlemans Agreement is a 1947 film about a journalist (played by Gregory Peck) who falsely represents himself as a Jew to research anti-semitism in the affluent community of Darien, Connecticut. ... Hamlet is a 1948 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Hamlet. ... All the Kings Men is a 1949 film based on the Robert Penn Warren novel of the same name. ... All About Eve is a 1950 movie drama written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, from the story The Wisdom of Eve, by Mary Orr. ... An American in Paris is a 1951 musical film based on the classical composition by George Gershwin. ... The Greatest Show on Earth is the slogan for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. ... Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the famous beach scene in From Here to Eternity. ... On the Waterfront is an American 1954 film about mob violence and corruption among longshoremen, and became a standard of its kind. ... For other articles with the name Marty, check the Marty (disambiguation) page. ... Around the World in Eighty Days is a 1956 movie based on the novel of the same name by Jules Verne, involving a dare proposed to English aristocrat Phileas Fogg by his gentlemens club to undertake a bold journey to travel around the world in only 80 days. ... The Bridge over the River Kwai taken in June 2004. ... Gigi is a 1958 motion picture musical set in Paris, France. ... Ben-Hur is a 1959 film directed by William Wyler and is, today, the best-known film version of Lew Wallaces novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880). ... The Apartment is a 1960 romantic comedy-drama directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. ... West Side Story is a 1961 film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. ... Lawrence of Arabia is an Academy Award-winning film based, with some licence, on the life of T. E. Lawrence, starring Peter OToole as the title character, directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel, from a script by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. ... My Fair Lady is a 1964 film directed by George Cukor and starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. ... The Sound of Music is a 1965 film directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews in the lead role. ... A Man for All Seasons is a 1966 film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Paul Scofield. ... In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 film, based on the John Ball novel published in 1965 of the same name, which tells the story of a Northern U.S. African-American police detective who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a racist small town in the... Oliver! is a 1968 directed by Carol Reed and based on the stage musical Oliver!. Both the musical and play are based on the famous Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. ... Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 film written by Waldo Salt based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy, and directed by John Schlesinger. ... Patton is a 1970 biographical film which tells the story of General George Pattons commands during World War II. It stars George C. Scott, Karl Malden and Michael Bates. ... The French Connection is a 1971 Hollywood film directed by William Friedkin. ... The Godfather is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Mario Puzo, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. ... The Sting was an Oscar winning caper film from 1973 based in the 1930s and centered around a convoluted plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). ... The Godfather Part II is the sequel to The Godfather, released in 1974. ... One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is a 1975 film directed by MiloÅ¡ Forman. ... For other uses, see Rocky (disambiguation). ... Annie Hall is a 1977 romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a script he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. ... The Deer Hunter is a 1978 film which tells the story of how the Vietnam War affects the people in the industrial town of Clairton, Pennsylvania just south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River (although it was also filmed in Cleveland and Mingo Junction, Ohio). ... Movie poster for Kramer vs. ... This article is about the 1980 film; songs with the same title have been performed by Mary Mary and John Legend. ... Chariots of Fire is a British film released in 1981. ... Gandhi (1982) is an Anglo-Indian film, directed by Richard Attenborough, about the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as Mahatma Gandhi, Great Soul), leader of the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. ... Terms of Endearment is a 1983 American drama film and romantic comedy. ... A play and film written in 1979 by Peter Shaffer, Amadeus is loosely based on the life of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. ... This article is about the book and the film; however, for the African-origin theory of human evolution sometimes referred to as the Out of Africa theory, see single-origin hypothesis. ... Platoon is a 1986 Vietnam war film, written and directed by Oliver Stone and starring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen and Forest Whitaker. ... This article is about the 1987 film. ... Rain Man is a 1988 film which tells the story of a selfish yuppie who discovers that his father has left all of his estate to the autistic brother he never knew he had. ... Driving Miss Daisy is a 1987 play by Alfred Uhry adapted into a 1989 Warner Bros. ... Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic film which tells the story of a United States cavalry officer in the 1860s who befriends a band of Lakota Indians, sacrificing his career and ties to his own people. ... The Silence of the Lambs is a novel by Thomas Harris, his second to feature Lithuanian count, sociopathic psychiatrist and cannibal Dr. Hannibal The Cannibal Lecter. ... Unforgiven is a 1992 revisionist Western film which tells the story of a retired gunslinger who takes on one more job for the money. ... Schindlers List is an Academy Award-winning 1993 movie based on the book Schindlers Ark by Thomas Keneally, published in the United States as Schindlers List and subsequently re-issued in Commonwealth countries under that name as well. ... Forrest Gump is a 1985 novel by Winston Groom, a 1994 film adaptation, and the name of the titular character of both. ... Braveheart is an epic American motion picture released in 1995 based on the life of William Wallace, a national hero in Scotland. ... The English Patient is a 1996 film adaptation of the novel by Michael Ondaatje. ... Titanic is an Academy Award winning 1997 dramatic film released by 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. ... Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 motion picture. ... American Beauty is a 1999 drama film that explores themes of love, freedom, self-liberation, the search for happiness, and family against the backdrop of average modern American suburbia. ... Gladiator is a 2000 movie directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. ... A Beautiful Mind is a book and Academy Award-winning film (starring Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, and Paul Bettany) about the Nobel Prize (Economics) winning mathematician John Nash and his experiences of schizophrenia. ... Chicago is a movie adaptation, released in 2002, of the musical Chicago, about celebrity and money in Jazz age 1920s Chicago. ... Million Dollar Baby is an Academy Award winning 2004 dramatic film directed by Clint Eastwood. ... Crash is an acclaimed Academy Award-winning drama film directed by Paul Haggis. ...

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