A deserved Academy Award winner, this lusty, magnificent period comedy deservedly gave the British their first `best picture' Oscar for 15 years. Director Tony Richardson (who never equalled his achievements here), takes Henry Fielding's famous story of a foundling's amorous adventures and, with incredibly cheeky sleight-of-hand, including quick motion, freeze-frame, and characters addressing the audience, enriches the screen with earthy entertainment played for laughs at breakneck speed. Five members of the cast were Oscar nominees, including Albert Finney, endowing Tom with a drive and a lust for life that is irresistible, and Hugh Griffith as the squire. Red-cheeked, debauched, leering at his farmgirls, or angrily pushing away his farm animals while he is trying to think, his is a richly comic performance. Best of all, though, is Edith Evans, as the haughty Miss Western. `Stand and deliver! ' cries a highwayman. `Sir,' retorts Dame Edith. `I am no travelling midwife. Coachman, drive on! ' But Oscars were won by Richardson, by John Osborne for his script, and by John Addison for his devastatingly witty 18th-century-style musical accompaniment to the ribald goings-on.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes