Tom Sawyer
About Tom Sawyer
Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly in Missouri and keeps getting into trouble. He falls for Becky Thatcher. With Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper he sees Injun Joe commit a murder in a graveyard. Tom and Huck later find treasure in a cave, where Injun Joe dies. Jack Pickford plays Tom. Clara Horton plays Becky. Robert Gordon plays Huck. William Desmond Taylor directed from Mark Twain’s 1876 novel. The catalog notes that the picture was filmed in Pleasanton, California.
Cast & crew
More about Tom Sawyer
Julia Crawford Ivers wrote the adaptation. Homer Scott photographed it. Jesse L. Lasky produced. Paramount released it. Wikidata times it at 59 minutes. George Hackathorne, Alice Marvin, Edythe Chapman, and Antrim Short are in the cast listings. Olive Thomas is also billed.
Themes
Making
Taylor shot Twain’s river town in Pleasanton and kept the graveyard murder and the cave as the two big sequences. Pickford, Mary Pickford’s brother, plays Tom.
Look
Homer Scott photographed the Pleasanton locations standing in for the Mississippi town, including the graveyard and the cave.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The Missouri of the story was played by Pleasanton.
- Edythe Chapman is billed. The catalog does not assign her a line of dialogue or a single scene.
- Richard Rodgers appears on a Wikidata composer credit. The 1917 release was silent. That name belongs to a later score, not to Taylor’s picture.
- A Commons file is titled Tom Sawyer (1917).
Scenes
- Tom, Huck, and Joe Harper watch Injun Joe kill a man in the graveyard.
- Tom and Huck find the treasure in the cave, where Injun Joe dies.
Influenced by
- Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Tom Sawyer (1917).webm)
