Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Awesome Movie

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Although it leaves important parts of the novel out -for budgetary reasons, I suppose-, what is in the film is all in the book, and to me it depicts the innocence and charm of Twain's children's world better than any other film adaptation has ever done. The Technicolor cinematography is absolutely fantastic, as well as the art direction. And the child actors are natural-born players, they are all perfect. And then we have dear old toothless Walter Brennan, one of my favourite American character actors and the first person ever to win three Academy Awards (1936, 1938 and 1940) as Muff Potter, the town drunk, a role he was born to play. David O'Selznick put the dollars in, and this film surely was a rehearsal for GWTW. And Norman Taurog, a director well experienced on working with children (Skippy, Huckleberry Finn, Boy's Town) at the helm. They made a film that will last forever.

You folks from the Chicago area will remember Frazier Thomas and his 'Family Classic' television program that ran for years on Friday night on WGN. My favorites were 'Robin Hood' and 'Tom Sawyer' from 1938. The movie is moving event that will take you down Memory. First love, raw fear, shame, murder, fun and pure joy is present in this wonderful retelling of Mark Twain's American classic. The story is set on the mighty Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri, circa 1850. The young boy playing the lead role is a very pleasant young fellow with plenty of charm and mischief to entertain the entire family. I have seen this film numerous times and I still love it. You will too.

We complain that today's movie stars lack the charisma, the memorable faces and personalities of the stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. But one thing has gotten better over the years and that's child acting. Today's kids are remarkably natural and real compared with the awful, slow, sticky artificiality of most of the child actors of yesteryear.There are many wonderful things about this film. William Cameron Menzies' visualization of the graveyard and the caves, Jack Cosgrove's matte paintings (those skies!), James Wong Howe's cinematography are all first class and memorable. Some (but not all) of the adult actors are quite fine. But the labored hamminess of the kids is quite unendurable. The illusion of thought, the illusion that something is being said for the first time never surfaces here for a moment. All is wide-eyed, over-rehearsed, over-enunciated and torture to watch.Mark Twain's immortal story retains power and magic, and the cave sequence in particular will stay with you, but in spite of the child actors, not because of them.

This film is in reality David O. Selznick's 1938 dress rehearsal for 1939's Gone With the Wind. Full length feature films in Technicolor weren't made until 1935 and there hadn't been many made by 1938. some studios didn't start using Technicolor until after 1940. Producer Selznick produced this big production film in Technicolor a year before he would masterfully capture the world's attention with it in Gone With the Wind. Production Designer William Cameron Menzies worked on both this film and GWTW for Selznick as did Art Director Lyle Wheeler, Special Effects Director Jack Cosgrove, Composer Max Steiner and Costume Designer Walter Plunkett. Wheeler was nominated for art direction for the 1938 Academy award for the Adentures of Tom Sawyer. He would received an astounding 26 nominations in his career including five wins including GWTW. Menzies got an Oscar and Cosgrove and Steiner were nominated for GWTW. Cinematographer James Wong Howe didn't join the others on GWTW but he had a cinematography career that spanned photographing Pola Negri movies in 1923 to Barbara Streisand in 1975 in Funny Lady a year before he died. Tom sawyer was directed by Norman Taurog who had a long directorial career from 1920 to almost 1970 and ended his career by directing nine of Elvis Presley's movies. Child actors Tommy Kelly as Tom Sawyer, Jackie Moran as Huckleberry Finn and Ann Gillis as Becky Thatcher. Veteran actors Walter Brennan is Muff Potter, Victory Jory is Injun Joe, Victor Kilian is the Sheriff, May Robson is Aunt Polly and Margaret Hamilton is Mrs. Harper. This film was trimmed from it's 93 minute run-time to 77 minutes when it was reissued in 1959 and that was the version that was shown on television that I saw when I was growing up. I've seen this a few times but haven't seen it in many years. It's one of the more faithful filmed adaptations of the many popular Mark Twain stories. I would give this an 8.5 of 10 but I would like to see the full version and see it on the big screen.