Customer Reviews

Joseph Andrews

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

JOSEPH ANDREWS is a glorious adaptation of the Henry Fielding novel. Done in much the same style as Tony Richardson's previous film TOM JONES. This viewer prefers JOSEPH ANDREWS as a more satisfying film experience. The adaptation from book to movie works better. The performances from all the classic British actors are priceless. The dialogue, filming, editing, costumes and locations are perfectly brought to life. Special mention has to go to Ann-Margret for her performance as Lady Booby. You won't see a more controlled, flawless, hilarious performance in any other film. She is striking to watch. Not only in her beauty, but in the delivery of her lines. Her accent is totally convincing. When has an actress made eating asparagus look soooooooo enticing! JOSEPH ANDREWS is definitely one of the forgotten gems from the 70's. Mixed-up identities and bawdiness at it's best!

Henry Fielding wrote Joseph Andrews before Tom Jones and in my opinion this is the better novel to screen adaptation.
The real surprise here is Ann-Margret's stunning performance. Here she's up against some of the most established and accomplished English character actors - Sir Michael Hordern, Sir John Gielgud, Beryl Reid, Jim Dale and Peter Firth, not only does she hold her own, she steals every scene she's in.

Ann-Margret as Lady Booby is genuinly funny dressed as a cherry glazed tart with the most persuasive English accent I've heard in years. The interplay between Lady Booby and her hand maiden Slipslop (played brilliantly by the late Beryl Reid) is hilarious. With a stellar cast and bawdy humour to boot, I can't think of a better way of spending a night in front of the TV.

This film worked for me in so many ways. Ann-Margret is wonderful as Lady Booby. Tony Richardson is top notch with his direction. The sporting cast is superb, notably Peter Firth.
This is the kind of film worth watching more than once. Not only because Ann-Margret is so beautiful to look upon, but there are so many levels of humor that more than one viewing is required to appreciate it all.
A must see for Ann-Marget fans!

What can I say? AM's finest moment. Spectacularly sleazy.

Oh, and the rest of the film's nice too, etc.

"Joseph Andrews" is not as witty, charming, and disarming as its predecessor, "Tom Jones", but performances by Ann Margaret and, even moreso, Beryl Reid, lend this film its best moments. The film's hero is a bit bland, his love interest beyond bland, and the film has the feel of "haven't we been here before... and wasn't it funnier then?" There are some genuinely funny moments, but the real reason to see it is the aforementioned Ms. Reid.
The late Beryl Reid, one of the most underrated (and sadly least filmed) character actresses of the film age, is Lady Booby's maid, Slipshod. Her scenes are the best in the film and it's a rare opportunity to see this actress in a role that she can sink her teeth into. See also the hard-to-find "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" and "The Killing of Sister George".

The 1742 novel 'Joseph Andrews' was author Fielding's second of three reinterpretations of his friend and rival Samuel Richardson's 1740 bestseller 'Pamela', a book he found so enticing for its sensible virtue and salacious voyeurism that he felt compelled to capitalize on the trend towards moralistic fables. ('Pamela' was the first novel printed in America, by Ben Franklin, in 1744.) In 'Joseph Andrews', Fielding depicts Pamela's brother as he endures a trek home from London in ignominy after his employer, the recently widowed and newly hot-to-trot Lady Booby, has fired him for spurning her advances. A Shakespearean concoction of plot twists ensues, in which Joseph may be Pamela's brother, or not, his fiancee's sister, or not, and Lady Booby's son, or not. In this the story becomes a comic picaresque in the tradition of 'Don Quixote', just the travels of two guys trying to go home, carrying with them a noble mission and the need for self-preservation in the face of many opportunities and threats.

Film interpretations of Fielding always have a tall order, because the author cut his teeth as a hack playwright in 1720s London and developed an infallible sense of how to tease and please an audience for profit. This movie delights just as the 1963 version of 'Tom Jones' does, and for the same reasons (having the same director being the biggest), although it is not shortened as much as 'Tom Jones' and therefore retains much more of Fielding's flavour, balance and scale. Michael Hordern would not have been my first choice for the humble Parson Adams (I would have preferred one more like Roy Kinnear) but he plays the infallibly and perhaps unrealistically upright character with dignity and charm. Ann-Margaret returns a surprising performance as a ridiculously insatiable English gentlewoman, though perhaps by playing Fielding's Lady Booby she could not have refrained from displaying her chest. But the aptly named Natalie Ogle as Joseph's fiancée Fanny tends to lose her shirt a few times too. though more as a victim than a vamp, and that is entirely in keeping with a bawdy 1740s English comedy anyway. All the bare breasts and bottoms (as well as the sexual innuendo) in 'Andrews' are done with a responsible sense of comedic timing and decorum, not merely gratuitously, and as such are both genuinely funny and a statement on the pitiable circumstances of the characters-- or, in the end, their marital bliss. That makes the movie all the more delectable; but it is NOT family fare (and got rated R for it).

As a die-hard 'Pamela' fan I found it a treat to at last get to see this story on DVD and especially to see this character done so well. There has never been a distributed video version of 'Pamela' (and there should be) and though in his book Fielding represents Samuel Richardson's heroine after her marriage to 'Mr B' as haughty and selfish, here director Tony Richardson shows her as warm and compassionate, appropriately satisfied with having taken the high road and thus able to be a good influence on the happy outcome of her brother's trials. Karen Dotrice has the right look, as the character has been depicted in the contemporary Highmore painting series, and the right amount of virtuous prettiness to deserve this thespian's mantle.

But it is Peter Firth who takes the whole show, invariably cute in a 1970s/Mark Hammill goodness, with his tousled blond locks and hairless chest and coy white-toothed smile embodying an innocence and eagerness that the sarcastically grinning Albert Finney did not in 'Tom Jones'. In the scene filmed in the actual Roman baths he is only a sweet-natured trusting boy, more impressed with having climbed a tree to win a prize in front of his fair maiden Fanny at the fair than with the sight of Lady Booby's clinging wet shirt right in front of him. Throughout the movie he has the single-minded virtue of a superhero waiting in disguise, and the viewer pulls for him in every step of the way home.

See this one before 'Tom Jones', as that's how Fielding wrote them, and you'll recognize the author's development of both character and plot that guided him towards his better-known 1749 masterpiece. They're both good movies and far easier for most than reading the books ('Tom Jones' is 933 pages!).

...

A marvellous adaptation of the Feilding novel, with a interesting and varied cast. It is very bawdy, highly sexual and much in the style of a Shakespeare's "Twelth Night" for the confusion and naughtiness that emits from mistaken identity.
A good version of the story but do follow the age guidelines as it features a lot of adult content and a fairly long scene of full frontal male nudity, in spite of the age of the film.

Unlike director Tony Richardson's previous Henry Fielding adaptation, "Tom Jones", "Joseph Andrews" is not a rousing success. It's bawdy but not particularly sexy. It's intricately plotted yet utterly predictable. It's populated with characters yet falls short in characterization. Why do I give it the pass? Despite it's flaws it gets an "A" in high-spiritness. The cast is appealing with veterans Peter Bull and Michael Hordern, up-and-comers Peter Firth and Natalie Ogle, and everything anchored by a terrific turn by Ann-Margret. Go in to this with less than heightened expectations and you will not be disappointed.

This movie shows the talents of a younger Peter Firth. It has an unusual storyline to it.

I did not like this movie at all. I purchased it because of all the good reviews. I guess it was supposed to be funny but I found it to be very very silly. Not much of a plot to this story.