Bawdy. I think every source I read for this film called it “bawdy.” And it is. Tom Jones (1963, Woodfall Production; United Artists-Lopert Pictures) is by far the raunchiest Best Picture winner we’ve looked at yet. Forget the innuendo of Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and The Apartment—not to mention, the seaside make-out scene in From Here to Eternity doesn’t seem quite so scandalous now. Even despite the, um, gratuitous displays of bosoms and the sex-obsessed male characters, I still found Tom Jones to be pretty much the worst BP winner so far. It was just quite stupid, to put it bluntly.

In 1964, though, the Academy disagreed big time, handing Tom Jones ten nominations, of which it won four: Music (Music Score—substantially original), Writing (Screenplay—based on material from another medium), Directing for Tony Richardson, and Best Picture. The film was denied the Oscar for Art Direction (Color) and failed to win any acting awards, though it had captured five acting nominations: Actor in a Supporting Role for Hugh Griffith as Squire Western; Actress in a Supporting Role for Dame Edith Evans as Miss Western, Diane Cilento as Molly Seagrim, and Joyce Redman as Jenny Jones/Mrs. Waters; and Actor for Albert Finney as the title character. I discovered randomly yesterday that Albert Finney played Daddy Warbucks in my favorite film version of Annie (1982)—all the times I’ve watched that movie, I never realized I was watching “Tom Jones” sing and dance!

Albert Finney as a charming Daddy Warbucks in 1982’s Annie.

One last issue I have with the Academy in regard to Tom Jones. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how this dumb film beat out Cleopatra—yes, the one with Elizabeth Taylor—for the Academy’s highest honor. I had the privilege of viewing Cleopatra in the theater a few years back when it was briefly re-released in tribute to Elizabeth Taylor after her recent death. It was overwhelmingly gaudy and really long (and not a little bawdy too); but I think as a whole, it certainly (and very easily) dwarfs Tom Jones.

Elizabeth Taylor in one of her most iconic roles–as Cleopatra.

Maybe the novel Tom Jones is better? As an English person, I should really read it, I guess. Then again, the Penguin Classics edition is over 1,000 pages long, and this person still has a few more months of thesis writing before summer break…Well, in case you’re considering going for the read, here’s a bit of info on Henry Fielding and his classic novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Fielding was born into the British aristocracy at the beginning of the eighteenth century. His social life seems to have mirrored that of his Tom Jones character. He didn’t know how to exercise tact in his satirical writing; so during his early (and prolific) career as a playwright, he got himself out of favor a bit with the powers that be—in fact, the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 can mostly be blamed on him, and the censorship it enacted ran him out of the theater and into a career as a journalist and novelist. After publishing the novel Joseph Andrews to a lukewarm reception in 1742, Fielding dropped Tom Jones on the world in 1749. It quickly became a best-seller. It is supposed to wrestle with issues such as: “class, marriage for love vs. marriage for money, greed, jealousy, revenge, forgiveness, reconciliation, and the search for wisdom.” While some of these elements are present in the film version, they are not dealt with very deeply; nor can they rise above the morass of promiscuity enough to be taken seriously, in my opinion.

The utterly ridiculous (but famous) eating scene from Tom Jones.

One reviewer of Tom Jones, the film, proposed that the movie was so successful because 1963 was the same year that the Beatles released their first album in America. The so-called British Invasion was certainly underway when the 1964 Academy Awards ceremony was held on April 13 (the Beatles had been on The Ed Sullivan Show a couple months earlier on February 9), though Tom Jones was probably in post-production in July when Introducing the Beatles hit American record shelves (the film premiered in the U.S. in October 1963). It is an interesting theory, however, that Anglophilia led to the popularity and achievements of Tom Jones. One random (but interesting to me!) fact about the film in connection to bands of the 1960s is the comparison that can be made between the odd scene in the inn (during which the characters run up and down stairs and through different doors while the film moves in fast forward) and the typical “Monkee romps” that were featured in pretty much every episode of The Monkees only a few years later in the decade. I’m a HUGE Monkees fan, and it so delights me to include them in a BP post (especially as I slog my way through a film I detest!).

1963 was a year that saw more than the advent of the Fab Four. There was a new pope, nationwide U.S. zip codes, and a shiny new Pro Football Hall of Fame. More importantly, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his incomparable “I Have a Dream” speech while standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win Best Actor (for Lilies of the Field). Lee Harvey Oswald ascended six flights of stairs in the Texas School Book Depository to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. And film-wise, all we have to show for a year like that is Tom Jones. Pathetic.

For more thoughts on Tom Jones and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!