Tom Jones

Pros: Rollicking good fun; great cast; innovative editing; memorable set pieces; exquisite period detail

Cons: You'll need to adjust your TV's picture for the currently available, poor-quality DVD transfers

The Bottom Line: This fine bawdy comedy won Oscars for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Score and boasts a fine ensemble cast and great lead performance by Albert Finney.

Review: Here's a film that's a rollicking good time. Tom Jones (1963) was winner of the Oscar for Best Picture and has delighted audiences for more than four decades. Historical Background: Tom Jones (1963) brought together three ...

Pros: cinematography, costumes, direction, casting, adaptation

Cons: camera mugging, continuity, resolutions are sometimes simplistic

The Bottom Line: Tom Jones has a great voice, but his appeal seems limited to aging baby boomers. Uh, an excellent and entertaining romantic, epic adventure that only Grinches and moralists could deny.

Review: The early 1960s was an era of unsettling black comedies, such as "Psycho", "Little Shop of Horrors", "The Manchurian Candidate", "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and "Lolita". As interesting as these films were, even the most jaded audiences must have...

Pros: Lots of fun, good script, well cast

Cons: Adult themes and complex plotting may leave some in the dust

Review: If you can't read the wonderful Henry Fielding novel upon which it is based, by all means, treat yourself to this delightful romp of a movie.

Albert Finney was at his most appealing ever in the role of Tom Jones, the foundling boy who grows up...

Pros: Albert Finney, Hugh Griffith, Joyce Redman, Story

Cons: Direction, Editing

The Bottom Line: A British comedy that will appeal to those who like Benny Hill or Monty Python.

Review: Tom Jones (1963) Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us, and many of us much worse. Narrator Tom Jones is a ribald comedy that hasn’t aged well. The story concerns a ...

Pros: actors (when given a chance), music

Cons: screenplay, editing, direction

Review: 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...