Tom Jones

Right away, it’s established that this is going to be a quirky movie.  The opening scene works like a silent film, with the actors being extra expressive and the all important dialogue (“aaaah!”) cut in to read.  A plucky piano provides a quick and light accompaniment as we watch Squire Western discover an illegitimate baby and the banish the young mother and presumed father.  What otherwise would have been a dark, dramatic scene has been turned into something quick and quirky.  It’s only the beginning of life for Tom Jones.

Cut to approximately twenty years later and we see that Tom (Albert Finney) is quite the ladies man.  He’s been adopted by the Squire (Hugh Griffith) and raised to be a gentleman along side his nephew, Blifil (David Warner).  Tom is constantly warned to stay discreet, pious and sober, but cannot resist the fun he has with women.  Though he plays the field, his heart goes only to Sophie (Susannah York).  When Tom is caught with Molly (Diane Cilento), the huntsman’s daughter and the town slut, he is banished by the Squire.  As Tom ventures to London, Sophie runs away to avoid marrying Blifil and to find Tom just in time to save him from serious trouble.

The narrator is hilarious.  Voiced by Micheal MacLimmoir, he provides the perfect background tone for 17th century English countryside with just a hint of sarcasm.  I would imagine this voice wearing a powdered wig slightly askew as he tells us, “To those who find our hero’s behavior startling, the answer is simple: Tom had always thought that any woman was better than none.”

One very interesting scene is the hunt.  In other films or books, the hunt has always seemed so elegant with high class people enjoying a bit of the outdoors.  Here, we see it’s just dirty old Englishmen getting liquored up and then drunkenly riding their horses across the countryside chasing a poor beautiful little deer.  They yell and blow their horns and dig their spurs into the horses with dogs barking all around.  At the end we get a savage last image of the poor deer, but that’s what these gentlemen who’ve learned to be religious and virtuous do for fun.

Tom Jones is such a delight, there are chases, sword fights,  a masquerade, romance and some hilarious situations that I don’t want to give away.  I highly recommend it.  The 17th century setting against the modern camera work, stark realism and unconventional comedy works amazingly well.  Finney and York have wonderful chemistry and MacLimmoir’s voice presiding over everything is the perfect topping.  If you want a film that can bring you some very unexpected laughs, Tom Jones is it.

“Madam, I despise your politics as much as I do a fart.”

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The Dresser

While seeing a live theatrical performance, a story that has been told thousands of times over again is what you see, but what is happening behind the stage?  Are there squabbles, tensions, people on their last nerve just inside the curtain?  Sometimes the fresh human story about the production you’re seeing is not on stage.

Sir (Albert Finney) is the aging leader of a traveling Shakespearean theater troupe during WWII.  Norman (Tom Courtenay) is his dresser.  While Sir is the face on stage and hold the ultimate power within the troupe (proven when he simply commands a train to stop), it is Norman who enables him.  Sir is at the center of Norman’s universe and he has sacrificed his better years to getting Sir ready for the stage.  But the stage is what creates Sir’s massive ego and he takes Norman for granted.

Hours before a performance of King Lear, Sir has a raging, ranting drunken fit in a marketplace.  Norman takes him backstage to his dressing room to nurse Sir back to health where he sings while making tea, gives him pep talks, brandy and makes sure no one sees Sir until he’s fully recovered and in makeup.  The energy Norman pours into Sir is astounding; while Sir is a half conscious mass man way past his prime, Norman is running around backstage reassuring the rest of the troupe that the show will go on.  If Norman was any less attentive to Sir, there’s no way he could have gone on that night.

These scenes with Norman preparing Sir are also wildly hilarious at times.  I had to pause the film to stop laughing after Norman finds Sir putting on the wrong makeup for the night.  When Sir is trying to remember the first line of the play, he starts reciting lines from all different plays.  And the way Norman deals with all this is like he’s helping a toddler who is on the verge of a huge mess.  His character is so exuberant and lively that he is just funny to watch.  I mean that in the dearest of ways, Sir is only lit up on stage, but Norman is on all the time.

The tensions on whether the show will go on are not just within Sir and Norman, but all around the theater.  It is WWII and just before the curtain is to rise, the air raid sirens start to howl.  Earlier in the film, there was a theater reduced to rubble.  We can only wonder if all Norman’s work to get Sir ready will be blown to pieces in the blitz.

One of my favorite moments in the film is the storm scene in the play.  While Sir is on stage, reciting his lines into the fury of the storm, backstage Norman and the troupe are creating the storm.  They bang kettle drums, create rain and thunder with props but Sir wants more, louder.  Soon they’re beating the hell out of those drums, creating so much noise no one would even notice a bomb hitting the theater.  When the scene is over, the backstage hands are out of breath and seem to be riding the high of the storm, but Sir yells at them, “Where was the storm?!”  Such a wonderful moment, it seems he’s never satisfied.

While on the surface of this film is the worry over the play and hilarious humor, the story is of a simple human relationship.  Norman believes he is the center of the troupe, always making sure Sir is ready and pouring his whole self into his work, but in the end Sir cannot be bothered by Norman’s little cry for gratitude.  It’s an amazing moment to see someone realize how little they are appreciated and in that final scene Tom Courtenay is simply astounding, in my mind, worth of Best Actor.

I promise I haven’t given too much away.  This is one of those films I could tell you all about, but the experience of seeing it is what really matters.  If you love theater, Shakespeare or not I completely recommend The Dresser.  By huge margins, I have picked this film as Best Picture for 1983.  Huge margins.

“227 Lears… and I can’t remember the first line.”