The Mysterious Stranger

Though it may not follow the original plot, the film makes a couple of the same philosophical points and arrives at the same ending, an ending too unpalatably bleak for any family movie. But the script adds a couple of extra sentences to bring us out on a positive note that, in my opinion, is not only acceptable but even insightful (much more so than the claymation Mark Twain movie with its own abbreviated "Mysterious Stranger") in integrating Mark Twain the morose nihilist with Mark Twain the jolly story-teller.

Mark Twain didn't write the script. The script doesn't even follow the plot of the original story. So it should be looked at as a fabricated Twain story. Still, it is pretty good. It begins in a "modern" print shop, which is actually in the late 19th century. A young boy, August, timid and out of place, persecuted by his employers, finds himself back in the 16th century, the time of alchemy and magic, and religious persecution. He is the same character, working in much more primitive print shop, one that produces Bibles for the University. It brings in a magical character named 44 who is able to jump through time and do virtually anything he wants. In the book his name is the not too subtle Satan, but 44 is really more of an imp and out to have fun. Most of the troubles have to do with an alchemist played by Fred Gwynne (looking very much like Herman Munster) and a group of discontented printers whose role seems to be to use their skills for extortion. It is a comment on labor unions and guilds and these fellows become the perfect foils for 44.

Twain would have approved because it takes shots at religion, at least mysticism, self importance, the romanticism we attach to these times, and the frailty and fundamental unfairness of human life. August, played by Chris Makepeace, is the recipient of 44's (played by Lance Kerwin, a child star of the late 70's and early 80's) abilities, but is himself caught in his own medieval beliefs and can't understand what 44 is doing. I watch this about once a year since I taped it on PBS way back in 1982. It has an interesting message and I would hope that people will make an effort to find it and see it.

The one thing to keep in mind when watching this is the fact Mark Train wrote three versions of this only one of which was actually completed: 'Chronicle of Young Satan' (set in 1590 Austria, abandoned in mid scene), 'Schoolhouse Hill' (with Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer as Satan's (now called No. 44) companions, also incomplete), and 'No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger' (set in 1490 Austria and the only version to actually have an ending).

The problem is that the 1916 version published by Twain's biographer Albert Bigelow Paine has since been revealed to be a composite of an heavily edited 'Chronicle of Young Satan' with the 'No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger' ending slapped on. If that was not confusing enough for someone trying to go back to the original story the University of California Press put out yet another version in 1982 that is supposedly the 'definitive' version that Twain himself would have had published had he lived.

It is clear from the text at the ending that this film is based on either the entire 'No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger' draft or the University of California version and not on the better known Paine version that mixes plots and characters from two totally different versions.