Joseph Andrews

Making this film some 14 years after Tom Jones : Entre l'alcôve et la potence (1963), Tony Richardson was persuaded to hire Hugh Griffith, who had scored a great personal success (and an Oscar nomination) in the earlier film, to play a brief cameo. In the intervening years, however, Griffith's legendary fondness for alcohol had degenerated into a chronic condition which would kill him in 1980, and Richardson was, he later wrote, shocked by his appearance and condition. Without alcohol, Griffith could not perform at all; but if he had even a small amount, he became incoherent, slurred and unpredictable. Compromising, Richardson fed him a tablespoon of brandy before each take, which he estimated was just about as much as Griffith could safely take.

Some stonework at the Roman baths is clearly stained with coal soot from the Industrial Revolution. This would not have been present in 1742 but was still common on old British buildings in 1977.

Featured in The 68th Annual Academy Awards (1996)