Peter Viney's Blog

Tom Jones
1963

Directed by Tony Richardson
Screenplay by John Osborne
Based on the novel by Henry Fielding
Music by John Addison
Cinematography by Walter Lassaly

CAST

Interesting to see the “heirarchy” of actors- this is the first credit screen. I would have put David Warner and Joyce Redman (Best supporting actress nomination) as ones who emerged as stars from  this, but it was not perceived at editing stage!

Albert Finney- Tom Jones
Susannah York- Sophie Western
David Warner – Mr Blifil
Joyce Redman – Jenny Jones / Mrs Waters
George Devine – Squire Allworthy
Rachel Kempson – Bridget Allworthy
Hugh Griffith – Squire Western
Edith Evans – Miss Western
Peter Bull- Thwackum
John Moffat – Square
Redmond Phillips – Lawyer Dowling
Diane Cilento- Molly Seagrim
Wilfred Lawson-Black George
Angela Baddeley- Mrs Wilkins
Jack MacGowran – Partridge
James Caircross – Parson Supple
Patsy Rowlands- Honor
Mark Digham – Lieutenant
Julian Glover – Northernton
Avis Bunnage – Landlady, George Inn
Rosalind Knight- Mrs Fitzpatrick
Lynn Redgrave- Susan, George Inn
George A. Cooper – Mr Fitzpatrick
Jack Stewart – MacLachan
Joan Greenwood- Lady Bellaston
Rosalind Atkinson – Mrs Miller
David Tomlinson – Lord Fellamar
with
Michaeal MacLiammir – Narrator

The 60s retrospective series continues …

1964 poster after US release

Tom Jones was filmed in June, July and August 1962. It was released in the UK in June 1963 … 1963? In the UK that was the Year of The Beatles … and the year when following the Profumo scandal we all realized that the pious homilies of the establishment on sexual behaviour were hypocritical.

Tom Jones ushered in the Swinging Sixties, rendering obsolete the downbeat black and white of the British New Wave and replacing its post-war discontent and austerity with a new energy and optimism. This Eastmancolour period romp … somehow managed to capture, perhaps even inspire, the mood of the time better than the earnest explorations of working class life undertaken by (Tony Richardson’s) previous offerings A Taste of Honey & The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The licentiousness of 18th century England chimed with the new sexual freedom that was soon to be unleashed in Britain.
Dr Josephine Botting, booklet to the BFI (British Film Institute) Blu-Ray

So a film from 1963 is regarded as one of the quintessential Sixties British films in spite of being set in 1745.  Henry Fielding’s picaresque Rabelaisian novel presented a mood of the mid 18th century that was mirrored in the mid-60s. It won a slew of major awards, and Albert Finney’s devil-may-care hero was to be reprised by Michael Caine, Terence Stamp, David Warner, David Hemmings, Alan Bates in the mid 60s Swinging London films. Look at the devices … Tom Jones winks and makes asides to camera, as does Mrs Waters, a few years before Alfie was considered innovative in doing so. Tony Richardson has a whole section of imitation silent film right at the start with speeded up sequences. The dinner between Tom Jones and Mrs Waters at the George Inn remained one of the sexiest pieces of interaction without physical contact or undressing ever filmed. The deer hunt is as good as action scenes shot from a helicopter get. It was one of the most influential films of the era. It was one of the very best films of the era.

Tony Richardson: What (the British critics) considered innovations–which were only the techniques of the silent movies–were a terrible shock to what was then called well-made film making. But American critics were great.
LA Times, 25 October 1989

I saw it in 1963, but major films kept returning in those days, and I’m certain I saw it in early 1966 again (I recall discussing the sexy dinner scene afterwards over dinner with a girlfriend). I remember seeing it in the late 60s … probably film club.

BFI DIRECTORS CUT

We watched the Directors Cut (1989) on Blu-Ray which is eight minutes shorter than the Theatrical Release. It’s a most unusual Directors Cut in being shorter than the theatrical release … they are nearly always longer.

Tony Richardson had been unhappy with the edit for years, even after winning Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director … John Osborne got best screenplay, and John Addison got best original score. It was Best Film in the BAFTAs and Golden Globes too…

Tony Richardson: 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.

The consensus is that lopping off those minutes has sharpened and improved it. Tony Richardson was married to Vanessa Redgrave, and so cast his mother-in-law, Rachel Kempson  as Bridget Allsworthy, and his sister-in-law, Lynn Redgrave as Susan at the George Inn.

Vanessa Redgrave suggested the silent film opening sequences, complete with intertitles:

Intertitles

(The silent film innovation)  continued with the liberal uses of  other cinematic techniques – freeze frame, fast motion, rapid cutting and intercutting, stylistic injections much remarked upon by the critics.
Dr Josephine Botting, booklet to the BFI (British Film Institute) Blu-Ray

1963 & LOCAL INTEREST

One of my dad’s close friends was named Tom Jones and he was Welsh, but he was not THAT one. He answered an advert in the local paper asking “Tom Jones” to phone a number and was presented with free tickets for the first night locally. As coincidence will have it, his daughter was named Jenny Jones.

Cranborne Manor gatehouses- the opening shot of the film. They’ve removed the ivy now.

For me, the film had so much local interest. Squire Allworthy’s house is Cranborne Manor in Dorset with parts dating back to King John, who founded it as a royal hunting lodge. My grandad was born in a tied estate cottage backing onto the manor wall, which was demolished to erect the 1914-18 War Memorial in Cranborne. His father and generations of forbears were all gardeners at Cranborne Manor and he got on the cart to Ringwood aged twelve, got a job as a railway porter and left the forelock-tugging rural poor to join the industrial working class … he ended up as an engine driver. Cranborne Manor now has a garden centre (all those years of brilliant gardeners) with lunches from local produce in the café, and we go there several times a year. The manor gardens are only open once a week. I don’t think the house is ever opened, so like my gardener forbears I’ve only peered at it from outdoors.

The film exaggerates the wealth of “squires” (local landowners) like Squire Allsworthy in 1745 – Cranborne Manor was the seat of Viscount Cranborne, the heir to the Marquess of Salisbury, so proper major aristocracy, not squirearchy.

Squire Western’s house was filmed at Steepleton Manor in West Dorset and Cerne Abbas. The church scene was shot at Nettlecombe, then a girls boarding school. It’s just over the border in Somerset, near Henry Fielding’s birthplace. That house is mainly Tudor, but dates back before William the Conqueror to Prince Godwin, the son of King Harold ” Look up! What’s that sharp thing coming down? Ow, my eye!” II.

FILMING 

It cost less than £1,000,000 to make and earned thirty times that.

We were short of money, the script was being rewritten the whole time and Albert Finney didn’t consider the role sufficient for his acting. He wanted to play Hamlet. Ironically, it probably will be the role he is most remembered for.We were on the edge of danger the whole time. Hugh Griffith was drunk from morning to night. You never knew if he’d be on the set or lying in a ditch. He once tried to kill Edith Evans by stampeding a coach she was in. Another time he took a shotgun and fired at the crew. He blew the top off my Thunderbird.
Tony Richardson, quoted in LA Times 25 October 1989

Albert Finney was nominated for Best Actor. Hugh Griffith was nominated as best supporting actor in the Academy Awards. Both of them were nominated for Best Actor in the BAFTAs. This was ironic. They were not on speaking terms for much of the fourteen week shoot.

It remains the only film to get THREE “Best supporting actress” nominations … Diane Cilento, Joyce Redman and Dame Edith Evans.

Tony Richardson had a script by John Osborne, definitely in The Entertainer mode (good) rather than Look Back in Anger mode (it is one of my most disliked plays!) It was a collaborative effort with the two of them pitching the idea.

His directing style combined carefully scripted pieces with impromptu shots, and allowed a degree of improvisation and cast ideas. He used young cinematographer Walter Lassally, who was prepared to use hand held camera, as well as chasing action from a helicopter during the deer hunt. Camera operators have told me that hanging out of a helicopter on straps while using a heavy camera is terrifying.

Cinematography: Tom and Mrs Waters trekking along the Dorset skyline in silhouette. See “A Far From The Madding Crowd” which reused this idea more than once.

Improvisation examples: When Squire Western chases Tom, Hugh Griffith, apparently drunk in reality in many scenes, hit Albert Finney across the back with his whip, drawing blood. In character, Finney improvised,  turned on Griffith and said, “I can’t abide to be whipped, Squire,” then punched him as hard as he could  in the face. Griffith’s lips were bleeding. Each stalked off the set, swearing never to work with the other again. It was kept. Similarly the pissed-paralytic Griffith accidentally fell off his horse during the deer hunt. They kept it. It’s alleged that if he hadn’t been so drunk (and relaxed) he would have been seriously hurt.

A SENSE OF TIME …

Black George (Wilfred Lawson) and Tom Jones (Albert Finney)

It was highly unusual to show people dressed as roughly, and as downright filthy at the time. With westerns, it was considered a major change from the Roy Rogers fringed immaculate white costumes to plain costumes to the realistically filthy costumes and thick mud of Cat Ballou or Support Your Local Sheriff. Tom Jones did it for Dorset. In the 1830s, a study had concluded Dorset was one of the poorest areas of England with “The meanest hovels.” That’s brought out in Molly Seagram (Diane Cilento) and her dad, Black George. These are people who’ve never seen soap. In the rural scenes at harvest, Squire Western and his workers look just as mired in bucolic filth. In two ways really, Squire Western being inclined to leap on and mount any passing female peasant. (Hmm, if they all did that, I might be related to aristocracy). Later, you definitely wouldn’t want to lie on the straw mattresses at The George Inn.

THE SILENT SECTION …

OK, silent with loud tinkly piano silent film style music (Main Title), so rather “speech free”. Squire Allworthy (George Devine) returns from London to find a baby in his bed. Blame falls on a maid, Jenny Jones, probably because she looks pretty sexy, and the barber, Partridge. Both are sent packing. The kindly squire decides to adopt the baby, and names him Tom Jones. Tom loves the squire as a father.

DORSET

Tom grows up. The squire has his nephew, Blifil, living there. He’s the son of Bridget, his widowed sister. Blifil (David Warner) is an apparently puritanical prig, and a nasty piece of work, thoroughly jealous of the squire’s affection for the bastard, Tom. Blifil was David Warner’s first major role, and I have never forgotten the character.

They have two tutors, Square (John Moffat) and Thwakham (Peter Bull). Tom is a popular lad, especially with Molly Seagram, the daughter of Black George, who is probably intended to be a Romany … I know Dorset prejudices. Molly (Diane Cilento) happily rolls in any available hay or bush with Tom.

Tom Jones (Albert Finney) and Molly (Diane Cilento)

At the same time, Tom really loves Sophie Western (Susannah York), the daughter of their neighbouring landowner, Squire Western  (Hugh Griffiths). However, being a bastard, Tom is an unacceptable match.

Tom and Sophie (Sussanah York)

One of the greatest sequences in the film comes here … the deer hunt. This caused filming problems. The Dorset and Somerset hunts refused to hire hounds, judging correctly that the end result of the film would fuel anti-hunting sentiment. This is still Countryside Alliance territory. We remarked once in a village that it was lovely to see hens walking around the verges, but what about foxes? ‘What the hunt don’t get, the shotgun do,’ I was told. Last year we watched trees being planted. 95% of the cost and effort of forestry is keeping deer off, they said. Deer can destroy a field full  of new trees in a night. Bambi is not their image of deer.

The deer hunt

When hounds were brought in, the locals broke in and fed the hounds at night so they would have no enthusiasm for attacking the deer at the end. The sequence had to be re-filmed using a deer carcass stuffed with beef liver. The hunt charges across people’s gardens, killing one poor peasant’s fatted goose. (My mother in law remembered the hunt destroying people’s gardens like this in rural Wiltshire and hated them).

Tom (Albert Finney) and Sophie (Susannah York)

Sophie’s horse bolts and Tom rescues her, breaking his arm in the process. She visits him to offer sympathy.

Tom (Albert Finney) comforts Mr Blifil (Jack Warner) after news of his mother’s death

Blifil’s mother, Bridget dies. She leaves a letter for her brother, but Blifil intercepts it. We will not know the letter’s contents till the very end of the film.

Molly gets pregnant, and Blifil ensures that it is reported to the Squire. (It turns out that Mr Square had also been having his way with Molly, but only Tom knows that).

Squire Allworthy (George Devine) and Mr Blifil (David Warner). Cranborne gatehouse behind!

Squire Western has set his heart on Sophie marrying Blifil, thus uniting their adjoining estates. Squire Allworthy approves and informs the unctuous Blifil who says ‘I will do exactly as you wish, Uncle.’ Blifil is a sanctimonious creep and Sophie knows it. He’s a cold fish and will reserve any physicality for the ‘sanctity of marriage.’

Sophie (Susannah York) and Mr Blifil (David Warner)

Matters are complicated by the arrival of Squire Western’s sister from London. Miss Western (Edith Evans) disapproves of everything about his rural ways.

Miss Western (Dame Edith Evans)

Western has always liked Tom and hearing that Tom has sired a child, laughs that “Women will like him all the better for it.” But then he is furious at Tom’s advances to Sophie.

Squire Western (Hugh Griffiths) with peasant girl. We used to get fruity in Dorset at Harvest Time.

Squire Allsworthy falls ill, and they hear of his will with an annuity for Tom. Blifil conspires with the tutors to have Tom sent away as a villain. The squire gives him a £500 note and sends him off to seek his fortune.

ON THE ROAD

Tom meets a group of soldiers, on their way to fight Bonnie Prince Charlie … cementing that 1745 date. It’ll be a long walk from Dorset. In the inn, Lieutenant Northerton (Julian Glover) takes a dislike to Tom. Tom is invited to propose a toast, and toasts Sophie Western.  Northerton is a sadistic swine:

Northerton: I knew one Sophie Western, was lain with half the young fellows at Bath … perhaps it is the same woman … It is the same young lady. I’ll lay half a dozen of Burgundy Tom French of our regiment had her in the tavern at Bridge Street … Tom French had her and her aunt together …

In the ensuing argument, Northerton throws a pot at Tom’s forehead. Everyone thinks he’s killed him. He says he was jesting and had never heard of Miss Western in his life. The captain says ‘Then you deserve to be hanged!” He is arrested but escapes. Tom survives. However he is robbed of his legacy while recovering in the inn.

Northerton (Julian Glover) about to finish Tom (Albert Finney) off.

On the road he encounters Northerton and Mrs Waters (Joyce Redman). Norterton has her strung up to whip and torture. Tom wins the fight (he only has a branch against a sword) because like all classic villains, the dastardly Northerton is too busy gloating over the final sword thrust he is about to deliver.  Tom sets off with the almost half-naked, saucy and seductive Mrs Waters.

Mrs Waters watches the fight (Joyce Redman)

In the meantime, Sophie has fled to London with her maid. They encounter a coach with her friend, Mrs Fitzpatrick (Rosalind Knight) who is fleeing her jealous and violent Irish husband.

Mrs Fitzpatrick (Rosalind Knight)

Tom and Mrs Waters get to the George Inn at Upton and we have that classic dinner seduction scene.

That scene: Mrs Waters (Joyce Redman) and Tom Jones (Albert Finney). Oysters are an aphrodisiac.

(It took so long to film and the actors had to eat so much food that they had bowls to vomit in. You try lobster, chicken, lamb, oysters and pears together).

Tom and Mrs Waters retire to bed. Mr Fitzpatrick (George A. Cooper)  arrives looking for his wife and decides that the couple he’s told about will be her and a lover. Mrs Fitzpatrick and Sophie arrived too, just in time to hear the confrontation which ends with Tom running off with his trousers down. They all depart … and Mr Fitzpatrick decides to slip into bed with Mrs Waters.

Tom encounters a highwayman. This happens to be Partridge the barber, who Tom thinks was his father. Partridge explains that he wasn’t but accepts a place as Tom’s servant. They’re off to London.

LONDON

Watching this time the surprise was in how much detail I remembered the story right up to arriving in London, and how little I had remembered of what happened in London … not that it’s in any way inferior. My main memory was of the grey-haired seductress, Lady Bellaston (Joan Greenwood). I hadn’t even remembered the ending.

Sophie and Lady Bellaston (Joan Greenwood)

Lady Bellaston knows Mrs Fitzpatrick and Sophie. She sees Tom Jones and decides to seduce him, not that the ever-randy Tom ever needed much seducing. She is wealthy and sets him up with fine clothes. She is “sophisticated” (Henry Fielding, having been brought up in Somerset and Dorset would have known the weight of that word in Dorset.)

Tom and Lady Bellaston (without her greg sophisticated wig)

Sophie is being pursued by Lord Fellamar (David Tomlinson) who is pressing his suit on her. Lady Bellaston advises him to rape her.

Mrs Waters is now living with Mr Fitzpatrick. Tom runs back into Mr Fitzpatrick and after a sword duel, injures  him. Tom is arrested after lies that he started the fight in order to rob Fitzpatrick. These are told by two agents of Mr Blifil who have been set to spy on him. Tom is sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn.

On the way to Tyburn to hang. Tom extreme right.

Squire Allworthy finally learns the truth which had been in the letter purloined by Blifil. Mrs Waters, it turns out is Jenny Jones. She has persuaded Mr Fitzpatrick to withdraw false charges of robbery against Tom.  She knows the full story. We have a few seconds to think that we are in an Oedipal story … with a wink at camera from Jenny. While she is telling the story, Squire Western arrives.

Jenny Jones aka Mrs Waters reveals all. Squire Western arriving on horse.

Jenny: My friend Mr Fitzpatrick is now recovered and is no longer charging Tom with robbery. I couldn’t be more pleased if he were my own son … (pause) … which it may surprise you to know he’s not. It was Mr Allworthy’s own sister Bridget, who was Tom’s mother, and I the one who put the baby in the Squire’s bed.

Tom is therefore Allworthy’s nephew and also his older nephew so his heir. Since Blifil knew this, concealed it, and tried to destroy his half-brother, Allworthy disinherits him. Allworthy manages to get Tom a pardon.

Tom on the cart

The escort to the gallows is led by Northerton and  Tom is already on the gallows; the noose is around his neck. Squire Western rides in, cuts him down and takes him to Sophie. They have the blessings of both squires.

OVERALL

Yes, one of the great period dramas and one of the best films of the 1960s. Age has not withered …

SOUNDTRACK

John Addison manages a wide range from plucked banjo to full orchestral film theme to avant garde classical to baroque to mock folk ballad. I found a copy and it’s pristine, because it’s one of those soundtracks which works to perfection with the film but you wouldn’t want to sit and listen to many times.

The Directors’ Cut is different:

Richardson said it was the music that “dated the film more than anything, because state-of-the-art recording is so totally different than it was 25 years ago.” Working with Addison, Richardson completely re-dubbed the sound track. The two even added new instruments and sound effects to strengthen and sweeten the sound.
Kirt Honeycutt, LA Times, 25 October 1989

DAVID WARNER

Tom Jones (1963)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Performance (1970)