The Adventures of Tom Sawyer **** (1938, Tommy Kelly, Victor Jory, Walter Brennan, Jackie Moran, May Robson) – Classic Movie Review 3344

Director Norman Taurog and producer David O Selznick’s 1938 movie adaptation of Mark Twain’s beloved 1876 children’s favourite classic adventure story is a thoroughly enjoyable vintage entertainment. It is the first film version of the novel to be made in colour, following versions in 1907, 1917 and 1930.

The freckle-faced Tommy Kelly stars as the spunky, mischievous 1850 Missouri boy Tom Sawyer, who hunts a scary killer, Injun Joe (Victor Jory), after seeing him commit a murder, and saves falsely accused drunken Muff Potter (Walter Brennan) from the gallows.

Kelly as Tom Sawyer, Jackie Moran as Huck Finn and May Robson as Aunt Polly head an ideal cast. John V A Weaver’s screenplay keeps most of the sequences of Twain’s famous and familiar story but adds some welcome laughs.

Taurog’s handling is sprightly and effective, James Wong Howe and Wilfrid Cline’s Technicolor cinematography is brilliantly eye-catching, and production designer William Cameron Menzies’s sets still astonish the gaze.

It runs only 93 minutes but there is also a cut version that runs 16 minutes shorter.

Also in the cast are Ann Gillis, Donald Meek, Margaret Hamilton, David Holt, Nana Bryant, Olin Howland, Charles Richman, Marcia Mae Jones, Cora Sue Collins, Mickey Rentschler and Philip Hurlie.

Surprisingly, the film lost $302,000 at the box office. George Cukor directed some scenes but received no on-screen credit. Scenes were filmed at Big Bear Lake, Lake Malibu, Paramount Ranch in Agoura, California, RKO’s Encino movie ranch and on sets left over from A Star is Born (1937)

Twain’s novel was filmed in 1930 with Jackie Coogan and twice in 1973 (one of them as a musical), all as Tom Sawyer, and Tom and Huck followed in 1995.

Bronx fireman’s son Kelly was selected for the title role via a national campaign by Selznick.

Tommy Kelly died of congestive heart failure on January 25 2016, aged 90. He was predominantly known for his work as a child star and went on to appear in Peck’s Bad Boy With the Circus (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939), Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941), Mug Town, He Walked By Night, Battleground, Curtain Call (1940), Military Academy (1940), Irene (1940), Double Date (1941), The Beginning or the End (1947), The West Point Story (1950) and The Magnificent Yankee (1950).

He retired from his Hollywood career by the age of 25. He served in the US Army in Europe in World War Two.

After his acting career, he earned a PhD from Michigan State and was a high school teacher and counsellor in Culver City, California. One of the last survivors of Gone With the Wind, he cried on camera as the boy in a band in Atlanta, while the death lists are given out.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3344

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