Huckleberry Finn
About Huckleberry Finn
Julia Crawford Ivers's scenario follows Mark Twain. Huck (Lewis Sargent) slips away from the Widow Douglas (Katherine Griffith), Miss Watson (Martha Mattox), and his father (Frank Lanning). On the Mississippi he travels with Jim (George H. Reed), who is running from being sold. The duke (Orral Humphrey) and the king (Tom Bates) come aboard. Tom Sawyer (Gordon Griffith) turns up for the last stretch of the trip.
Cast & crew
More about Huckleberry Finn
William Desmond Taylor directed, as he had Tom Sawyer (1917), again from a scenario by Julia Crawford Ivers. Frank E. Garbutt was the cameraman. Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky produced it for Famous Players-Lasky, and Paramount released it. It opened in Chillicothe, Ohio, and Riverside, California, on 13 January 1920, played the Rivoli in New York the week of 22 February, and went into general release on 29 February. Schools in Chillicothe closed early on opening day so children could make the matinee. The picture runs seven reels.
Themes
Making
Taylor and Ivers carried the same crew of collaborators from the 1917 Tom Sawyer into this sequel-in-spirit, shot for Paramount-Artcraft.
Look
Frank E. Garbutt photographed the Famous Players-Lasky production.
Preservation
The film survives. A print has circulated from the Paramount release.
Notes
- Sargent and Griffith were already known child actors. This was the first Huck film played entirely by a youth company, with George H. Reed as Jim.
- Esther Ralston plays Mary Jane Wilks, Edythe Chapman is Aunt Polly, and Thelma Salter is Becky Thatcher.
- The Chillicothe campaign was aimed at schools, farmers, and townspeople, and the early dismissal of classes was part of it.
Influenced by
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
- Tom Sawyer (1917)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-huckleberry-finn)
