The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) coming from Kino

[Purplenoon]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

After reading Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, during my early childhood, I got the idea to run away from home and live an adventurous life on my own, just as Tom, Huckleberry Finn, and Joe Harper sought out to do in the book. I took a pint of ice cream and a half pack of Oreo cookies from the kitchen when my parents and brother were not around, put them into an empty school bag, and set out into the forest behind our house. I walked a half mile into the woods, sat down on a rock, ate the ice cream and Oreos, became bored, and returned home. I was clearly not cut out of the same courageous mold as Tom Sawyer, but the novel still captivated me several times over during subsequent readings back then, and it still holds a special place in my heart. For this reason, I have always enjoyed seeking out the movie versions of the tale.

The 1938 film, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which was shot in glorious Technicolor by the legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe, was the first color adaptation of the Twain story, and it remains a timeless envisioning, mostly thanks to the spare-no-expense approach of David O'Selznick, who also produced classics like Gone with the Wind and Rebecca. Actor Tommy Kelly, who excels in the title role, was chosen from a national search, but Walter Brennan (Rio Bravo), who plays the town drunk, Muff Potter, and May Robson (Bringing Up Baby), who plays the strict Aunt Polly, are the two most recognizable faces to today's audiences. I first saw this version during the mid-1980s when my seventh grade teacher showed it to the class, and I remember my friends and I cracking up at the scenes where the tattletale Sid Sawyer, who deserved a beatdown more than any cinematic kid in history, was pelted in the face with food or whitewash paint.

The sequence where Tom and Becky Thatcher are lost in the cave takes up the bulk of the narrative in this particular adaptation, and it remains an example of brilliant filmmaking and art design. This movie would go on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction.

I'm hoping that the 1939 adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which stars Mickey Rooney in the title role, receives a Blu-ray release in the future so that I can make a double feature of both films.

This Kino Lorber release sports a nice-looking transfer of both the 91-minute original edition and the shortened 77-minute re-release.

Do you think the color/cinematography on this Kino release is significantly better than the existent DVDs which are pretty bad?