Huckleberry Finn (1931 film)
| Huckleberry Finn | |
|---|---|
 Window card | |
| Directed by | Norman Taurog |
| Written by | Grover Jones William Slavens McNutt Mark Twain (novel) |
| Produced by | Adolph Zukor Jesse L. Lasky |
| Starring | Jackie Coogan Junior Durkin Mitzi Green |
| Cinematography | Dave Abel |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1 million |
| Box office | $2.5 million |
Huckleberry Finn (1931) is an American pre-Code comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer and Junior Durkin as Huckleberry Finn. The picture was based upon the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
Production
This is an adaptation of the classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and is a follow-up to Tom Sawyer (1930). Omitting the entire issue of whether or not Huck ought to turn the slave Jim back in after Jim escapes his owners, it concentrated mostly on the comedy in the novel, and turned Jim into the typical comic "darkie" stereotype of that era.
According to Leonard Maltin, the film is "charming, but very, very dated".[1] The picture was released on August 7, 1931 by Paramount.
Cast
- Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer
- Junior Durkin as Huckleberry Finn
- Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher
- Jackie Searl as Sid Sawyer
- Clarence Muse as Jim
- Eugene Pallette as Duke
- Oscar Apfel as King
- Warner Richmond as Pap Finn
- Clara Blandick as Aunt Polly
- Jane Darwell as Widow Douglas
Follow-Up to Tom Sawyer (1930)
The film was made as a followup to Paramount's Tom Sawyer, which had been released a year earlier with substantially the same cast and became the top-grossing film of 1930.
However, as happened with Tom Sawyer, the 1931 Huckleberry Finn was superseded only eight years later by MGM's better-acted, far more cinematic, and faithful The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, starring Mickey Rooney as Huck, Rex Ingram as Jim, Walter Connolly as the King, and William Frawley as the Duke.
See also
- The House That Shadows Built (1931 Paramount promotional film)
References
- ^ Maltin, Leonard (2010). Classic Movie Guide. New York: Plume. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-452-29577-3.