Sorry, this movie sucks

It is a performances centric movie

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

So asks the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the gang return with the witches' broomstick. Well, I'm asking that here for this farce of a period comedy of sexual deviance in the era of "Tom Jones". I actually thought more of something that Voltaire might have written, or maybe even a Benny Hill TV show sketch, and a touch of "Sweeney Todd" and the Thenardiers of "Les Miserables" thrown in while watching this non-sensical costume piece where everybody looks like clowns who had spent hours having flour fights.Blonde and beautiful Peter Firth, the horse-loving boy of "Equus", is the title character who spends more time romping around either in the nude or in the hay with various women than even Albert Finney's Tom Jones did. Poor Ann-Margret looks ridiculous in a tomato colored wig while a group of singing nuns chant as Firth is sexually attacked by a hideous looking peasant woman. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what was supposed to be going on. "Tom Jones" was too far in the distant past to warrant an imitator, especially one put together in an era past the mod films of the late 60's and early '70's.Veteran British character actors Michael Hordern and the always dependable Beryl Reid suffer only slight indignities, while smaller roles are essayed by future Oscar winners John Gielgud (only briefly) and Peggy Ashcroft. Veteran actor Jim Dale provides a musical number regarding his tryst with a hot- blooded gypsy. The costumes seem like something worn by the hideous guests at the Baron's birthday party in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in which you were supposed to realize how awful they were. Ann-Margret, whose make-up makes her cheekbones look like giant pimples, can't really be taking this all seriously.The man behind the camera was none other than Tony Richardson, who directed the 1963 Oscar Winning Best Picture "Tom Jones", one I feel hasn't stood up to the test of time. Try not to laugh at the sped-up sexual sequence that looks like something out of the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner hour. In retrospect, this is the type of film that appears to get even worse as every minute of it goes by.

Another reviewer described Peter Firth in this film as "ludicrously pretty." It's not only true, but for a future film I'm going to reference that comment in describing Leif Garrett. But as for Joseph Andrews, Peter Firth's looks and innocence keep drawing women to him like flies to flypaper.Peter Firth's been brought up by pious pastor Michael Hordern who is a throwback to the Puritans of the last century. He's definitely out of place in mid 18th century Great Britain, the age of Walpole and the first two Hanoverian Georges were ones in which they believed in let the good times roll. Peter's spotted by Ann-Margret wife of fat nobleman Peter Bull who thinks he'd make an excellent footman and of course she has other things in mind. Especially after Bull expires in an old Roman bath that the gentry of Hanoverian Great Britain have revived the custom of.Firth's got every woman in the cast chasing him, but he wants to stay virtuous and save himself for his true love Natalie Ogle. That proves close to impossible, in the meantime everyone is envying his good luck with the ladies.Tony Richardson who directed Tom Jones fourteen years earlier to an Academy Award for Best Picture brings the same eye for detail to the sets and costuming and atmosphere of the same era that Henry Fielding was writing about. The two in the cast I love are Beryl Reid with that wonderful Dickensian name of Mrs. Slipslop and Ann-Margret as Lady Booby who does more than hold her own with the British cast. Bridging the two Fielding/Richardson collaborations is Hugh Griffith who returns briefly in this film in his role as Squire Western from Tom Jones.Joseph Andrews for reasons I can't explain is unjustly overlooked and critics seem to say Richardson was just trying to recreate Tom Jones again. Considering it's the same source that gave us Tom Jones that charge is ridiculous. Joseph Andrews has enough merit to stand on its own and should be seen and recognized for the fine film it is.

History has forgotten this film, it's never talked about, almost never shown. Why? It's certainly not a quality problem. Richardson was of course trying desperately to get back to the level of success Tom Jones had a decade before. The fact that he's trying to copy himself gets the film some minus points.The story is simple, a little too dependent on coincidences and unrealistic twists. The costumes are great, as are the wonderful settings. You certainly feel like you really are there in the 17th Century.Firth and Ogle as the young loving couple are attractive but bland. They fail to live up to the comedic demands of Fielding's story. The rest of the cast does a very good job on the other hand. Special mention should go to Michael Hordern and Beryl Reid, two of Britain's finest actors. Nevertheless the best acting in the film comes not from one of the British theater and character actors but instead from the only American in the cast: Ann-Margret. She was rightfully nominated for a Golden Globe but would have deserved an Oscar non too. It's a brilliant satiric performance full of subtlety and vulgarity at the same time, comic timing that's never off, she dominates the film. Considering the talent that is working alongside her, that's quite a feat. Her accent is perfect too, something that rarely happens and could so easily destroy such a film. In the worst possible scenario she could have been an anachronistic sex kitten from the 60s stuck in a costume drama: Those fears never come true, she's great. The thick make-up (that fits the role perfectly) prevents us from seeing hernatural beauty but she's still quite a sight. Why American producersdidn't see the film and immediately give her a comic lead role in anHollywood A film, seems like a brutal shame.Overall, a fun little history story of love, romance and adventure.

"Joseph Andrews" would be just another comical period piece if it were not for the fantastic performace of Ann-Margret who's comical timing is never off once. Her accent is flawless and she looks terrific as always! A-M makes "Joseph Andrews" the classic it should be.