As Aventuras de Huck

This 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.

The 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

An 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.

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.

Ever 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.