Tom Jones

(Tony Richardson, UK 1963, 128 min., 35mm)

Academy Awards at 90. Born a bastard in the English countryside, young Tom Jones (Albert Finney) grows to be a freespirited playboy whose cross-country promiscuity can’t disguise a deep love for hometown lass Sophie Western (Susannah York). Henry Fielding’s 200-year-old comic novel was turned into one of the hippest films of the early 1960s through Richardson’s freewheeling direction, Walter Lassally’s handheld camerawork, and John Addison’s catchy score. A Best Picture winner and a key entry in the British New Wave of the early 1960s, Tom Jones is a tremendously entertaining mixture of romance, comedy, and all-out bawdiness.