Fun adaptation of Mark Twain's classic novel with ideal casting of Mickey Rooney as Huck Finn. It's the story of an adventurous boy who sails down the Mississippi with his friend Jim, a runaway slave. Your kids might enjoy it if you're lucky enough to have kids who can appreciate older films or smart enough to understand the period in which the story takes place. Even if you don't have kids who fit that description, I'd say it's still worth trying to get them to watch it with you there to answer any questions they may have. The film obviously has some subject matter that kids (and a lot of adults) today may be oversensitive to. I'm speaking primarily of the character Jim, played brilliantly here by Rex Ingram. This part of the story is watered down from the novel but still people will grouse about it anyway. It's not surprising considering some have been trying to get the book banned from schools for decades now and have sadly been successful in some of our more politically militant indoctrination centers. Some fans of the book won't like that some changes have been made. It's not a perfect adaptation, for sure, but it's the best of any that I've seen.
Add a Review
-
coy_dog024 September 2007Like any literary adaptation, this film throws out many scenes and changes others around. As a film, though, it works perfectly. Comparing it to the 1960 version, the reputation of the 1930s as the golden age of Hollywood is exemplified in this picture. Although the film and editing techniques were primitive at this point, the humour is funny, the characters click, and the drama is captivating. I'm not sure why this and the 1960 leave out the scene where Huck convinces Jim he's dreamt them separating in the fog, since its one of the most important in the novel. In any case, Jim's plight is tragic, and makes one shudder to think of the many people that had to be subjected to the institution of slavery. Rex Ingram gives a great performance, and his best scene may be in the jail, right before the lynch mob bursts through the door. "Somebody help me!" he cries. Amazing.
It should also be noted that Clara Blandickgives an outstanding performance as Miss Watson. Mickey Rooney is okay as Huck, but his acting style hasn't aged as well as the others in the film. Overall, I highly recommend this as great entertainment and a great film.
8/10 -
george_chabot24 July 2007Recommended for family entertainment, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" showcases the talents of "Mickey Rooney" and shows why he has been such a beloved actor for so many years.
Mickey Rooney stars as the title character, according to the book about 13 years old. Rooney was already past 18, but with his short stature and boyish face he looks exactly the part of young mischievous boy whom we see smoking his pipe and walking barefoot through the dust.
Based on Mark Twain's book of the same name, it is as closely adapted as the time constraints and censorship would allow. The general substance of the novel is left intact with a few details changed for the sake of dramatic license; otherwise it is well adapted as I remember from my recent re-reading of the novel.
Mickey Rooney is perfect in his portrayal of Huck, with his mischievous ways and always with a twinkle in his eye. Rex Ingram makes a thoughtful "Jim" whose quiet dignity makes Huck learn to accept him as a man, not just a piece of property to be owned.
The movie is quite funny and will become a favorite of the whole family with its wholesome characters and situations. If you get a chance to see it, I think you will agree that this is real entertainment that everyone can enjoy. -
I am surprised that there is no other review for this movie and I am the first to post my opinion on this box office hit of 1939, a top 20 hit of its year. When I sat down to watch this adaptation of the famous Mark Twain novel, I knew the running time was under 90 minutes so I did not expect to get the full book which I have read but the cliff notes version which I have also read. But no, Louis B. Mayer just had to give it the MGM cornball effect with scenes which are not in the novel and which change the meaning and transformation of Huck's character. Mickey Rooney, the biggest child actor the movies have ever heard, and in my opinion, also the best it has had brings one of those flawless performances to the role. Rex Ingram makes for a good runaway slave Jim and the other performances are fine. Direction is pendant in the hands MGM journeyman - that is not a craftsman, not an auteur, imagination insignificant, camera angles; perfunctory, directing actors; left to your own devices - Richard Thorpe who had a long and healthy career in Hollywood. You wonder why? The first half does feel like a cliff notes version as the scenes skip through have a general lethargic pace but keeps your attention because the story is good anyway. The changes involve the capture of Jim and Huck's injury and the resolution of the aforementioned events. It is not what happens and tongue-in-cheek ending changes the message of Twain's classic. I won't say I didn't enjoy it. I just mean if you are going to alter a classic, you'd better come up with something better.
-
masonfisk6 December 2021An affable, spry 1939 adaptation of Mark Twain's classic starring Mickey Rooney as Huck. Following the trials & tribulations of our ne'er do well adventurer who'd rather go fishing & smoke a pipe, Huck goes from one episode to the next eventually partnering w/Jim, a runaway slave, formerly in thrall to his benefactors (a pair of well meaning sisters), as he aims to get him on a steamboat bound for the North towards freedom but matters becomes complicated when Jim becomes the subject of a manhunt, suspected of Huck's murder (he faked his own death to ease the burden he feels he's placed on the sisters' plate). I'm embarrassed to say I've never read the immortal tome but know some of the situations depicted so I got the gist of the fable as Rooney, a pure delight, essays a lively take on our immortal rapscallion w/special mention going to Rex Ingram as Jim. Look for William Frawley (Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy) as one of 2 con men out to get a family's fortune.
-
GManfred15 August 2012Ever wonder why Hollywood can't just transfer a book to the screen without taking liberties with the plot? In this case, what was wrong with the way Twain wrote it? It resembles the book somewhat, but the movie works better if you didn't read it.
This was a cover-your-tracks movie so that MGM couldn't be nailed as racists, so some of Twain's book is whitewashed here. The result is a bland, pablum version devoid of tension and told in one tone of voice, without the highs or lows and lacking any suspense where required, for instance when Huck and Jim in hiding witness the tarring and feathering of the King and the Duke.
Having said all that, was there ever any better juvenile actor than Mickey Rooney? A reader mentioned Freddie Bartholemew - anyone ever see Bartholemew sing or dance, or display any charisma? Mickey Rooney is responsible for any success this picture has had. In a similar vein, I always think Walter Connolly is a detriment to any picture in which he appears. This movie would have been better off with nearly anyone else as the King, as he is a shrill, unconvincing actor.
As is, "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" is a good movie which could have been so much better. -
SnoopyStyle27 November 2021It's the classic Mark Twain story starring Mickey Rooney as Huckleberry Finn. Huck often skips school to fish down on the Mississippi river. He has the knack of telling tales. With reason, he decides to run away and fake his own death. The unintended consequence is that slave Jim gets accused of his murder. Together they aim to escape upriver. They encounter con-men Duke and King along the way.
Mickey Rooney is a little too old to play Huckleberry Finn. He does his Mickey Rooney best and it would work if it's a few years earlier. He needs to be believably innocent. He's almost twenty and the pretense is showing through the cracks. The ending gets reworked with some awkward notes. I can see why it was done but the awkwardness remains. All in all, this is very much a Hollywood creation and that's not unexpected. Mickey's age is still a problem. -
tamarenne31 July 2009I do not compare this movie to the book, because it is not faithful to the book. That was never the purpose of the movie. The purpose of this movie was to provide a vehicle for Mickey Rooney who was the biggest box office star in the world from 1939 to 1942. And justifiably so. He has loads of talent. I say has because he is NOT DEAD. I read with horror a post here by someone who assumed that Mickey Rooney was dead and more about that later.
For now the reasons why I think this movie is so good are simple. Beautiful presentation, cinematography, acting, direction and writing. The cast are without exception wonderful. Especially Mickey Rooney who just inhabits the role. The tears in his eyes when told by Rex Ingram that his "pap" is dead....pure gold. Speaking of Rex, his portrayal of Jim is sheer poetry. It isn't easy to bring such depth and layering and nuance to such a character and yet he just does wonders with the very unforgiving role.
Walter Connolly and William Frawley are hilarious and insanely funny and yet curiously terrifying at the same time as the King and the Duke.
The plot does differ a bit from the book but so did and do a lot of movies even today. Many people adore 1937's Captain's Courageous (including me) and are seemingly not bothered by the fact that it veers wildly from the Kipling novel. I am not sure why that is. It feels like some people are actively trying to denigrate Mickey Rooney and certainly he seems to be out of fashion, but someday I do believe people will revisit the man and his movies and realize just how good he was and is.
Which brings me back to Mickey Rooney.. I think its sad when one of the immortal legends of movie history can be so throughly maligned and ignored. At a time when movies mattered, Mickey Rooney stood at the top of the hill. He had it all. Superbe acting talent, as well as an amazing entertainer. To compare his acting with Freddie Bartholomew is unfair to both. Freddie probably was the most talented child actor EVER but he had zero in the entertainment category. He could neither sing, nor dance, and did not have a magnetic personality. In those three areas Mickey stands head and shoulders above him. Mickey can sing, dance, and play dozens of instruments. Only Judy Garland stands above him and that is because she was a better actor and singer by far and Mickey, to his eternal credit, knew this and loved her for it.
I find it heartbreakingly sad that this movie has garnered so few reviews; and more sad that this man who has given so much to the entertainment industry and to movies in particular, can be so ignored by our modern day, talentless, tasteless "entertainment" industry that one can actually be forgiven for assuming he is dead.
I would love to see the over payed, over indulged denizens of the entertainment industry actually pay homage to Mickey Rooney at the Oscars before it is too late and before we truly do lose this living legend forever.
Thank you Mickey Rooney for all that you have given us. -
For quite awhile into this film, I felt encouraged by its seemingly faithful adherence to Twain's great novel. About halfway through, however, I began recalling scenes from the book I'd read for the first time only 6 months ago, suddenly realizing how much of Twain's imaginative masterpiece had been omitted, which was disappointing. The film's ending was completely different from the novel in an effort to give the film an overhurried, cinematically exciting finish. Despite such transgressions, the movie truly looks authentic in terms of time, place, & costumes. Without exception, the acting is uniformly good. My only real disappointment with the film is that the primary engine of the story, the river, is never specifically named, i.e. The Mississippi. While most assuredly not filmed on the great waterway, none of its magisterial width or awesome natural beauty is depicted. It could be any river anywhere. As a matter of fact, the story's setting, its historical geography, is rather hazy & described in questionably vague fashion. Regrettably, Huck & Jim's famous journey along the great liquid conduit writhing its way through the nation's midsection is treated quite mundanely. Likewise, the fugitives' raft isn't presented in its entirety, its physical dimensions & components unclear. The viewer never sees the most famous log conveyance in literary history from above or afar, its relation to the river's grandeur wholly non-depicted. True, as desperate travellers fleeing for their lives, Jim & Huck wouldn't've spent their time "oohing & ahhing" over, or commenting on, the wonders of the wavy world upon which they'd embarked but the filmmakers made no attempt to create this feeling in the viewer. Some steamboat interaction, however, was competently & acceptably done. Although the scenes with the King & the Duke are both amusing & faithful to the novel, for which one can be grateful, watching this segment comes off as a little too lengthy & ponderous when viewed onscreen, deadening the pace of an ongoing story. As mentioned, the finale is almost wholly unrecognizable, involving a movie-invented character who plays no part in the novel, though he's a likeable & important character. Sadly, too, perhaps, the film completely omits the arrival of Tom Sawyer on the scene, comprising several of the most amusing & enjoyable chapters of Twain's tale. Mickey Rooney, of course, is superb as loveable, pipe-smoking, shoes-hating, school-avoiding rapscallion Huck, though a few years too old to be wholly in sync with Twain's immortal character. Rex Ingram is unforgettable as Jim, capturing the freedom-questing slave's humanity most sympathetically & movingly. The movie's well-made, atmospheric, & quite entertaining---an appreciated attempt at capturing the essence of Twain's timeless triumph, though only half-succeeding. The other half should've been the capturing of the sheer poetry of the thrilling, epochal, life-changing journey taken long-ago, when the nation yet was young, so many of its dreams, and, yes, flaws, hidden-away in the still-unknown future. The story of impartial, endlessly-flowing Ol' Man River, one that played such a huge role in our country's development---and 2 characters immortalized by Mr. Clemens in what was far-more than a mere adventure story. This 1939 movie-version is, & will remain, a good but forgotten cinematic artifact, while the original novel will just keep rollin' along.
-
aremyhandsdirty4 November 2015Yeah it is hard not to notice Mickey Rooney and a bit of Andy Hardy leaks through. I don't know any movie that can capture Mark Twain total wit, The only ilk of that type are a few Shakespeare movies. This later complaint coming from stuff shirts 1939 critics.
What this movie makes you want to do is read the book, which is a good thing. This movie was about 100 pages of script, the book 400. If Twain could have written it in 100 pages he would have.
Why anyone thinks you can do a verbatim reproduction of a book is beyond me. Look at Gone with the Wind, or the modern book The Shining. The Shining totally fails as a movie, both releases, as the book is a more richer story. Slight spoiler for the Shining follows. The first Shining move especially because of the ending and ignoring the hotel's furnace problem which is an important thread in the book.
Rex Ingram as Jim should have at least been nominated for a best supporting actor. He was the glue in the film.
This is just a good classic golden age movie. -
evening126 November 2021From the banjo strains of the movie's first frames, this film has some wonderful moments.
Though I was an English major at college, I've never read the Mark Twain classic, so I enjoyed getting the Cliff Notes version in this buddy film with Mickey Rooney as Huck and Rex Ingram as his slave friend, Jim.
The movie is marred by some stereotypes, beginning with Huck's officious schoolteacher, who rants against his fraternizing with "raftmen and other worthless people." (Were these the deplorables of their day?)
Rooney excels as free-spirit Huck, who loves his liberty as much as Jim craves his. Huck may have a pre-diagnosable case of ADHD, but his conscience guides him well.
I hadn't expected the strong anti-slavery theme of this story. Jim is a most sympathetic character, willing to risk everything to flee to a free state and his wife and son. Huck evolves from a knee-jerk supporter of slavery -- "You belong to Mrs. Douglas. God intended you to be a slave" -- to a fearless defier of a truly scary lynch mob.
The movie bogs down in the shenanigans of the King and Duke -- c'mon, no one's interested in Huck's playing Juliet -- but the friendship story redeems such flaws.
Glad I saw this paean to freedom. Yep, "no human bein's got the right to own another human bein'." -
TheLittleSongbird18 October 2013The others were the 1993 Elijah Wood film which was quite good, the 1974 musical version which was heavily flawed but still above-average and the 1975 Ron Howard version which was soggy and actually very bad. The photography in this film may be at times less than lavish and the final third feels rushed, but of the four it was the version that came across on its own as the best. As an adaptation perhaps it's not great, then again this is adaptation we're talking about(when something is not faithful to its source it doesn't mean it's immediately bad) and it does deserve judgement on its own merits. And while it's not perfect, it has many merits. The authentic river locations are a major plus, while the dialogue flows well and manages to be entertaining and poignant and the story still has cohesion and a good sense of atmosphere. The film may have primarily have been a showcase for Mickey Rooney but even with that the story is thankfully not ignored. Jim's jail scene is deeply heart-breaking. The pacing does feel rushed in the final third of the film but for most of the film it is just right, while the direction is very competent if not entirely imaginative. But the best asset about this version of Huckleberry Finn is the acting, so effective to the extent that it's like the characters themselves stepping out of the pages, and we are talking also about physical resemblances. Mickey Rooney's Huck is charming, mischievous and towards the end affecting(he may be somewhat too old, though not by much, but he doesn't look like he is), while Rex Ingram(personal favourite actor in the film) is very dignified and nuanced as Jim and Victor Kilian's Pap dominates quite terrifyingly. Walter Connolly and William Frawley are wickedly funny and menacing, in almost all four versions the Duke and the King have been scene-stealing characters(apart from 1975, hardly any the actors acquitted themselves well apart from Jack Elam). Elizabeth Ridson is fine as well. Overall, very good and underrated, of the four versions so far seen it's the best by quite some way. 8/10 Bethany Cox
-
I've added a little to my review, which was originally posted on May 4th, 2006. Thank you to the 4 out of 6 people who said they found my original review helpful. You'll see my additions starting about a third of the way down: I re-read Mark Twain's novel this week, and borrowed this movie version yesterday from my public library. I have just watched it and have to say that it is one of the most thorough distortions of HUCKLEBERRY FINN ever filmed. The novel is unambiguously anti-slavery. When you read the book you are supposed to be horrified that Huck doesn't actually realize he's doing the morally right thing by helping Jim escape slavery. The movie constantly emphasizes that Huck is right to be ashamed that he's helping Jim. M-G-M was so afraid of offending the bigoted part of its audience that it turned Twain's irony upside-down. The studio dispensed with Twain's dialogue in all but the most fleeting moments and substituted tepid bits of business. Key revelations are placed way too early. There is a courtroom scene in the movie while in the book there is not even a trial. None of this was done to make it a better movie. All of it was done to make everything safe for M-G-M. Mickey Rooney as Huck and Walter Connolly as the Dauphin give stand-out performances, but the dialogue, which surely isn't Twain's for more than a millisecond, serves them poorly. Rex Ingram's performance as Jim would have been inspiring if Twain's words were left intact. Instead he's reduced to interpreting lines from a melodrama having absolutely nothing to do with the towering work of literature this movie pretends to have as its source. Finally, M-G-M is not entirely to blame for this awful distortion. The blame rests on America's profound history of racism; a history Mark Twain wanted us to confront; a history deliberately, decidedly ignored in this outrageous revision of his art. HERE'S the racism of this movie: While, near the end of the novel, Jim is put in chains because of the simple fact that he is a runaway slave, the movie justifies Jim's imprisonment by having the mob think Jim has murdered Huck. Any mob would be somewhat justified in capturing and jailing a man who is thought to have murdered a child. But in the book, the people who put Jim in chains think he is a different runaway slave. They put him in chains simply because he's been turned in for a reward. The people who have turned him in (the Duke and the Dauphin) have never known that Jim has been accused of murder. This is because the Duke and the Dauphin don't know where Huck and Jim come from. The Duke and the Dauphin want money, so they print up a false ad with a description of Jim and plaster it on billboards saying he's a runaway slave. The Duke and the Dauphin are not even certain he actually is a runaway slave. Jim is put in chains by people who have never heard that he's suspected of murder. Hollywood, afraid to remind people of what their ancestors actually did, makes the lynch mob rather sympathetic. HERE'S a distortion of Twain's book. Early in the book, Jim and Huck discover a shack which has been destroyed in a flood. There's a dead man in there. Both Jim and Huck know the body is someone who's been shot. But only Jim sees the face. He tells Huck not to look. This body is not mentioned again until the second-to-last paragraph of the entire novel, when Jim, who has just learned that he's been freed in his late owner Miss Watson's will, tells Huck that the dead man in the shack was his father. The movie, however, has Jim confess to Huck, about two scenes after the scene in which they find the body, that he didn't tell Huck at first because he didn't want Huck to stop helping him run away. Huck then gets angry at Jim and calls him a false friend for not telling him. In the novel, Jim does not say why he didn't tell Huck at first and he certainly offers no apology, as he does in the movie. Huck does not call Jim a false friend in the novel. What happens in the final paragraph (which comes just after Huck learns that the dead man was his father) is that Huck tells us that he's going to head West to avoid Aunt Sally's plan to adopt him. We are not told if he's mad at Jim for taking him down the river without telling him his father's dead. Because we know Huck had been running away from his abusive father and yet still loved him, we can assume his world was shattered when he learned his father was dead. So, what does Depression-era Hollywood do with a story which ends with its main character determined to get away from everybody he's ever known? It has him, in the last scene in the movie, promising Aunt Sally he'll be good. He's so good, in fact, that he's just persuaded her, one scene earlier, to believe him when he tells her that slavery is wrong (which he never says in the book)and that Jim should be freed. She agrees to free him, in this movie, if Huck promises to do his schoolwork and not smoke and always to wear his shoes. He promises to do all that. The scene ends cutely with Huck secretly slipping his shoes off. This is not merely a cute ending. This is an ending designed to counter Twain's other point, which is that society is deeply corrupt and forces creatures of nature, such as Huck, to live in a state of perpetual flight.
-
fisherforrest7 May 2006Most novels are long enough to require considerable editing to make them fit into the usual 90 minute format that Hollywood preferred in the days of 1939. What to leave out is always a problem. Someone's favourite scene is sure to be lost, whatever the treatment writers do. Mark Twain' classic seems to have always been troublesome for Hollywood. Put in too much and someone is sure to scream "racist"; Leave out too much and someone else is going to scream "chicken"! This version strikes a rather nice balance, but of course it didn't please everyone. Personally, I feel that leaving out Tom Sawyer is all to the good. His antics always seemed farcical to me. The comedy that remains in this version is not exaggerated, but is rather subtle. The real defect is that the film proceeds smoothly for about the first two-thirds, up to the time Huck is bitten by the snake. After that, everything is rushed and choppily edited. It makes for a disappointing finish. I admit, though, that the lynch mob scene, with Jim cowering in the jail as the mob batters down the jail door is exciting. If you are unfamiliar with both novel and film, I'll let you find out how Huck saves Jim! This cast does an excellent job of presenting Mark Twain's characters. After all, MGM had probably the best stable of character actors in 1939 of all the studios. Rex Ingram stands out as "Jim", but Mickey Rooney truly was born to play "Huck". Charges that the subtle changes to Mark Twain's original, so far as the slave Jim and the attitudes toward him are portrayed, mark this film as "racist" strike me as absurd. Efforts to bar the film, sometimes even the novel, here and there, are just Political Correctness run amok. Slavery was part of American Life in the time frame of the story, and attitudes varied from region to region. This is accurately reflected in both film and novel. Jim, too, get s sympathetic treatment in both. Where's the "racism"?
-
mark.waltz31 December 2010Mickey Rooney has exited Boy's Town and Carvel and headed to the Mississippi for this faithful rendering of Mark Twain's classic story. Filmed many times before and since and also done as a Tony Award Winning Broadway musical, "Big River", this is the definitive version of the tale. Mickey is at his best here, and I think he was more worthy of an Oscar Nomination for this than he was the same year's "Babes in Arms". Everything from start to finish is perfect, from Victor Kilian as his evil father to Elisabeth Risdon and Clara Blandick as the two middle aged ladies who have taken him in. Special mention must go to Rex Ingram who may seem a little old to be Jim, but is outstanding. Walter Connelly and William Frawley add amusement as the con-men Huck and Jim encounter on the river after they are tossed off a riverboat. The photography is outstanding, the film moves at a fast pace, and everything is letter perfect. I really felt as if I was transported back to this time in a story that is not only entertaining but educational and enlightening about so many things as well. It's a true message film about what makes friendships so special, and Huck and Jim's is one of the best presented on film.
-
HotToastyRag29 October 2019Much to Donald O'Connor's disappointment, no one associates him with playing Huckleberry Finn. It's Mickey Rooney who personifies the adorable, mischievous, barefoot hero. You just can't help but love him in this movie, even if he drove you crazy playing the lovesick, goofy Andy Hardy a dozen times. He's absolutely perfect, and with his infectious energy, he makes it seem like Mark Twain used time travel and met him before creating the character.
The screenplay of this version is very entertaining and engaging, including all the gimmicks and characters you know and love from Mark Twain's stories. You'll get to know Mickey's aunt, Elisabeth Risdon, and you'll come to love the push and pull between them. You'll enjoy the friendship between Mickey and Rex Ingram, who plays Jim. Walter Connolly and William Frawley play the two drifting conmen, and while they also steal lots of laughs, they also steal your attention and your hearts. Every scene of this movie is exciting and fun, and even though it might have been overshadowed by the large-scale epics of 1939, it's still a great movie in its own right. It doesn't have any "burning of Atlanta" scenes or a Technicolor splendor to transport you to another world, but it's unforgettable and heartwarming, which is some people's definition of a true classic. -
wes-connors25 December 2010MGM tailored Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" for box office champion Mickey Rooney, with predictable results. Mainly, this is a comedy, with some rather exasperating omissions, and some cute additions. As with many child stars, the studio was by now relying heavily on height to help put across Rooney as a precocious thirteen-year-old. The whole ranges from workmanlike to good, with Rex Ingram's "Jim" helping the latter. As the swindlers, blustery Walter Connolly and rascally William Frawley are a funny team. The amusing ending actually works; at least, the studio resisted having Illinois lawyer "Abe" Lincoln actually make an appearance.
***** The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (2/10/39) Richard Thorpe ~ Mickey Rooney, Rex Ingram, Walter Connolly, William Frawley -
bkoganbing25 December 2014This is probably the least faithful version to Mark Twain's immortal novel that I've seen put on the big or small screen. Still this is one admirable production of The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn and Mickey Rooney's starring performance is infectious and fun. The main points of the film are kept intact and that would be the whole sequence involving Huck Finn and Jim with those river con men the 'king' and the 'duke'. and the whole question of this white trash river kid helping a black slave whom he has been brought up to regard as inferior to freedom.
Through a combination of circumstances Huck Finn because he wants to get away from the widow Douglas's civilizing ways and his own father's brutal whipping Mickey Rooney as Huck fakes his own death and takes off on a raft with Jim, the widow's slave who wants to be reunited with his wife and child in a free state. But the law is hunting Jim not just for an escape, but for Huck's murder.
On the way these two pull Walter Connolly and William Frawley from the river where they've just been dumped after being caught cheating on a riverboat. The self styled king and duke get Huck to aid in a con being perpetrated on a young girl recently lost her father. They get Rooney to aid in the scheme lest they betray him and Rex Ingram to the authorities.
Here as in the novel the best scenes are with Rooney and Ingram as the slave Jim. For the first time in his life because the two are caught in the same predicament Rooney is seeing a black man as a human being. It makes him start reevaluating his thinking as Twain wanted many Americans to do. Twain came from the same background he's talking about the Missouri of his upbringing and how he came to escape that thinking with his character of Huck Finn.
Conmen for the most part in film are presented as lovable rogues on the big and small screen. Twain's king and duke are some of the most realistically created conmen in literature. These two are rogues, but there's nothing lovable about the way they want to trim some young girl of her fortune and leave her penniless and homeless. Connolly and Frawley are quite hateful and great in their roles.
Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be America's great novel and this abbreviated version might give you some indication why. It succeeds as this film does in entertaining you, but also making you think. -
Back in the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood often took a rather cavalier attitude towards classic material. A great example is 1936's "Romeo & Juliet", which featured actors two to three times the age of the characters and credits 'additional dialog' to an MGM writer! Another is "Wuthering Heights"...where the studio tacked on a HAPPY ending!! Because of this, I assumed that they'd similarly ruin Mark Twain's classic story of Huck Finn...especially because the story has a strong abolitionist slant...and studios OFTEN would sanitize these sorts of things in order to not offend racist audience members! I was shocked, then, when the story turned out to be very close to the source material...and as a result, it is a fine movie. It also deeply humanizes Jim and makes for an amazingly heartfelt film. Well worth seeing.
By the way, at one point in the film, Huck is bitten by a rattlesnake and Jim cuts open the wound and sucks out the poison. Despite this being a common belief, this is NOT a good idea!! Kids, don't try this at home. -
muffinheuer20034 August 2005This movie is perfect for the nations #1 box office star of 1939. No wonder the public adored him! Mickey Rooney simply stated is the best actor that has ever lived. Mickey gives a down to earth and lovely performance.!!! The movie is very true to the book. If you loved the book, you will love this movie. It's wonderful!!!!!! Another great movie that was perfect for Mickey Rooney was Young Tom Edison. If you love him as Huck, then check out Young Tom Edison! Another Blockbuster performance by the MASTER performer. Mickey Rooney, may you live on in the hearts of all who love you! Also for your Rooney fans check out Boy's Town and The Human Comedy. The Andy Hardy series are also terrific God Bless you, and I love you Mickey!
-
Even though 14-year-old Huckleberry Finn stole, smoked, lied, cursed and was lazier than an old possum, he was still a likable sort of rascal who was always full of bull and yarns and home-spun advice for all of his gullible friends, and the likes.
Released in 1939 - The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn would the first of 4 screen adaptations that energetically tackled Mark Twain's novel (written in 1884) of the same name.
Set in the year 1835 (where the action takes place in Missouri, along the Mississippi River), this decidedly average MGM production was still an entertaining and good-natured tale that I think was probably best suited for the enjoyment of a much younger audience than myself.
Though far from being faithful to the novel (where the racism was toned-down considerably), The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn starred the young, gung-ho actor, Mickey Rooney (who was 19 at the time) as the title character.
Full of pep and energy, Rooney (like the rest of the cast) put in a sincere and believable performance which certainly helped to keep the story fresh and relatively interesting.
This picture's story focuses in on Huck's raft trip down the Mississippi, accompanied by Jim, a negro slave running away from being sold. Together these 2 strike a bond of friendship as they inevitably find themselves led through some harrowing events and hair-raising adventures. -
rmax30482313 October 2011It's been so long since I've read the novel that I have to think hard about how closely the film follows the print. Not that it's so important. A movie should be judged on its own merits, I know.
Yet the book, despite a major screw-up towards the end, was a model of its kind. Huckleberry Finn, like Candide, belonged in C. Northrop Frye's category of "naive hero." Huck experienced all sorts of adventures, during which he exhibited two primary traits -- he was dumb and he had no sense of humor at all.
The movie preserves the second more or less intact. Mickey Rooney -- pretty good as Huck -- enjoys himself often but only very rarely does he laugh. And he doesn't play tricks on anyone. He's mostly earnest.
And the movie keeps Huck naive too. For instance, when he and (N word) Jim pick up the two tramps who have been thrown off a steamboat, he believes it when they both claim the choicest meals because they are European royalty. (That's Twain's jab at European pretensions.) But the studio -- MGM, the home of "family movies" -- gives Huck an affable outgoing quality that one doesn't read into the Huckleberry Finn of print. The novel's Huck was anosognosic. He didn't know he was naive. Mickey Rooney is lively. He dashes about, picks things up quickly, and he speaks rapidly. And some of the longueurs of the novel are omitted. The pace is more lively and the events spruced up.
I'll give an example. Those two vagabonds, the con men. Huck and Jim haul them onto their raft and share their space and food with them. One of the bums, after some gentle prodding, provoked by some of his own hints, reveals that he is the Duke of Bridgeport. So Huck and Jim treat him with greater deference, while the other tramp watches and grows more sullen. Finally, after a lot of brooding and thinking, the second tramp hints that he too has royalty in his background. Attention turns to him. And after a lot of nudging he admits that he is the Dauphin, the lost son of the King of France, so he outranks the first bum. Part of the humor in this absurd situation comes from the growing envy of the second tramp. The movie drops this. It squishes the two fraudulent claims together so that the tramps lie in rapid sequence.
The adapter and director do this all the way through. It's not bad. It adds zap to the story. One element the writers might not have played down so carefully is the fate of Jim, which after all is the most important thing hanging in the balance. Eliminated too is Twain's tragic sense of life, as when Finn senior picks up a jug of liquor at the beginning of the novel, shakes it, and reckons that there are about three more cases of DT left in it. (That's delirium tremens, a horrifying illness.) Still, throughout both the book and this adaptation, we can sense Twain's gentle skepticism regarding humans and their adventures. Twain edited the dying U. S. Grant's memoirs when the ex-president was broke and living in the Adirondacks. The memoirs contain this sentence about Grant's youth. "In school, I was taught so often that a noun was a thing that I began to believe it." I'll bet that's Twain, not Grant. The writer himself was a curious and Byronic figure. He spent a short while in the army of the Confederacy and wound up living in a Hartford mansion next door to Harriet Beecher Stowe. -
ramirez750328 January 2007I believe that this film was well appropriate for the time zone in which it was created.
When viewing this movie, one needs to place themselves in a time capsule so to speak. It is a movie based on a child's story.
I enjoy Mickey Rooney, and was sorry to hear of his passing around December 2006. He shows determinant energy in his acting on this film. Rex Ingram, although, this movie placed him in a very stereotypic role, he put his all into it.
The movie had several great actors, and great areas, I think anyone who views it through the eyes of a child, will truly enjoy it. -
klwatson-488-1722002 August 2019It's a shame that today's youth will never experience this classic literature. Political correctness has destroyed the American legacy.
-
g_dekok13 September 2008fr muffinheuer: >...Mickey Rooney simply stated is the best actor that has ever lived...<
Um, no, he isn't. There are many others who far outshine him, but just because MGM kept partnering him in the "hey kids, let's put on a show!" movies, he just kept going. A far better kid actor was Freddie Bartholomew, who left movies when it was right to do so. Rooney just kept being in the same type of movie, and they got very dated very quickly.
He was good in "Captains Courageous" as Dan, and as Homer in "The Human Comedy" and somewhat fair in "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world", but overall, just average.
Now that he spouts the studio line on Judy Garland and the way the studio got her addicted to drugs, he's just a former kid star who didn't age well.