The Adventures of Mark Twain

Like Samuel Clemens, himself, this film is a great illustration of the Art of Exaggeration. The rough outline of Twain's life is retained as a foundation for greater elaboration. The Calaveras County episode is a perfect example. Would it have had the same impact on us if Twain (Fredric March) had been a mere bystander? Absolutely not! We have a stake in its outcome because HE has a stake in it. Would it have been as funny if Twain's partner, Steve Gillis (Alan Hale) hadn't been responsible for filling the opposing frog full of buckshot? No way; Gillis' responsibility involves us. That Twain has bet on the frog of the opponent, Bret Harte (John Carradine), and lost all their money serves the interests of justice. More importantly, however, it is one more example of the ironic failings of Twain's early life. Having Bret Harte be the owner of the opposing frog is pure genius - a clever homage to another great American author, who was Twain's contemporary. He is played with aplomb by John Carradine, a wonderfully versatile performer, whose earlier career as a character actor is sadly overshadowed by his later career as a stereotypical ghoul.

As other commentators have noted, March is phenomenal in capturing the legendary Mark Twain. March is one of the greatest actors in American film history. His performance here is typically nuanced, capturing the dry wit of Twain with understated charisma, and also the pathos of the man in his private life. Brilliant!

Alexis Smith is wonderful, too. She had the ability to capture loving, devoted women with a realistic warmth that is never over-sentimental. Besides, she is very easy to look at. (At a similar age, Jody Foster bears an uncanny resemblance to Alexis Smith in this movie. The cameo could easily have been of Foster.)

The very personification of the Art of Exaggeration is Alan Hale, here portraying Steve Gillis, Twain's sidekick out west. Somehow in roles such as Gillis he is capable of the greatest of acting paradoxes - delivering exaggerated performances that NEVER seem overacted or hammy. His characters always appear natural, yet larger than life. Offhand it is difficult to think of another actor who accomplished this incredible balance. I would watch ANY movie in which Hale appears.

Likewise, comedies of this era seem to be able to strike that same balance - natural, yet larger than life. That is what sets them apart. Later films don't seem to be able to capture the same balance. In attempting to do so, actors just come across as hammy. The Art of Exaggeration in American film, got lost some time in the late 40's. What a shame. Movies like this are the quintessence of that fine art.

Frederic March has a wonderful time playing the great author with all his humor and wisdom. This film is often overlooked, but it is one of the great bio-flicks. The settings, cast, Max Steiner score, and magic of the adventures add up to a funny and touching movie.

With a film like this available, I can report that the rumors of Mark Twain's death are indeed exaggerated.

I have always admired Fredric March as an actor. This roll showed his great versatility. The writing and editing of Mark Twain's life into this movie makes it one of the finest biographical movies of all time. The soliloquy by the chancellor of Oxford, played by C. Abrey Smith, encapsulates the life of Twain, better than any I've heard or read since. This movie is a must for any student of American literature.

President Taft said: " Mark Twain gave pleasure -- real intellectual enjoyment -- to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature."

How true. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is one of only a handful of men in American history I wish I could travel through time to meet. He has created several of the most memorable characters in all of literature.

The Adventures of Mark Twain, while not a very accurate biography, is still highly entertaining and offers viewers a brief glimpse into the man, his life, writings, trials and tribulations. After all, how many 100% accurate film biographies would be worth watching? Most would be as boring as watching a chess match in slow motion. The film makers took some liberties, but the end result is one that Mr. Twain himself would probably enjoy. The final scene is heart touching and unforgettable.

He's now been physically dead all of 95 years, but Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) is still the most popular novelist and writer in American history, and one of the few great American writers to merit his own film biography. There is no film (at the very least no remembered films) about Charles Brockden Brown (our first major novelist), Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper (whom Twain hated reading), Hawthorne, Melville, Howells, James, Crane, Dreiser, Wharton, Alcott, Cather, Fitzgerald, Lewis, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Wouk, Salinger, Vonnegut, or Bellow. You have to go back to Edgar Allen Poe (the subject of several films, including a silent one (THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE) by D.W. Griffith) to find another major American writer who is a subject of biography. There is also a film on the life of Jack London made in the 1940s. But the key is that Poe, London, and Twain had interesting lives meriting filming.

The film is true in its outline but the fleshing out is questionable. For example, Twain did go into the mining fields of California and Nevada in the late 1860s, but he probably did not win the jumping frog contest that was the basis of his first literary success, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Nor was his literary rival, Francis Bret Harte (John Carridine), the man who lost that contest. But there was a contest he apparently witnessed in 1865, and he expanded on it for his classic short story.

Some aspects of the story I am surprised to find in the film. The infamous Whittier Birthday Speech fiasco (although still debated) did occur in 1876, and somehow hurt his acceptance by the eastern literati whose "gods" (Emerson, Holmes, and Longfellow) were somewhat laughed at in it. Also there is the frightening story of the Paige Typesetter that helped bankrupt Twain (forcing him to go lecturing and writing around the world in the 1890s.

The fact is, the film is actually better in presenting Twain's literary and private life than the average movie biography of that period or even now. March looks like his subject (and his make-up ages him properly). He knows how to do the delivery of the comic lectures perfectly. Note how at one point when he says to the audience, "The last time I went south....", March points quietly but prolonged downward, so the audience realizes he means "the last time I went to Hell...." We are used today to Hal Holbrook's "MARK TWAIN TONIGHT" performances, with his southern delivery, but March is just as effective in his way.

The other performances are good, with Walter Hampden lecturing March about what gentlemen of his class consider REAL literature, or with Percy Kilbride as a typesetter who trains Twain, and who later claims he helped make Clemens Mark Twain. Alexis Smith manages to portray Livy (Olivia) Twain as the perfect love match she was. The film does not hesitate to show Twain's career had as many missteps as successful peaks. It does avoid his attack on American Imperialism, and it does not detail the series of family deaths that plagued his last decade (two daughters and a nephew followed Livy to the grave before Sam followed her in 1910). But for getting the general outline correct, and for casting the film correctly and producing it very well I can say it deserves a "10" out of "10".