User Reviews

The first major adaptation of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn came to the screen in William Desmond Taylor's 1920 silent film. It was only one of three films Taylor directed and produced in his career before the scandal that took his life two years later. This version was adapted from Twain's novel by Julia Crawford Ivers. The film follows some of the major events of the book but misses the literary importance of the novel, so the film becomes a telling of a story rather then the exploration of its artistic merits, despite a few hints of the same. Child actor Lewis Sargent plays Finn in satisfactory fashion, but Frank Lanning, playing Huck's abusive father is quite exaggerated in typical silent era fashion. George Reed, as Jim, has little to do except for the escape scene. Reed began a long career in bit parts with this, his second film and first noticeable role.

The film was painstakingly restored by George Eastman House from a Danish print found overseas. The dialog had to be replaced with English and was designed to match the style of the era. The film contains several scenes in typical black and white which alternate with scenes that are tinted in yellow and blue at times, probably due to the condition of the footage when discovered. The film gets treated and restored, but any previous deterioration is difficult to overcome. Several brief scenes are missing in the film, primarily in the last ten minutes. The footage missing is mostly transitional, bridging scenes. The exception is the escape scene when Huck helps Jim escape. This film was the third in Taylor's trilogy of Twain films, the earlier being 1917 and 1918. Thus, Lewis Sargent replaced the aging Robert Gordon who played Huck Finn in the prior two films. Esther Ralston, who plays Mary Jane in the film, has her first noticeable role in her fourth film and later became a star. **1/2 of 4 stars.

Huckleberry Finn (1920)

Friday July 15, 2pm, The Castro, San Francisco

An old maid adopts motherless Huckleberry Finn to "sivilize" his coarse, free-spirited behavior. Her plans are thwarted when the boy is kidnapped by his father, the abusive town drunk. Huck escapes by faking his own murder and befriends a runaway slave. Their tranquil life of rafting on the river is interrupted by two seedy con-men who sell Jim and involve Huck in fraud, while he masquerades as his best friend Tom Sawyer and falls in love.

Missing the satirical bite and social consciousness of Mark Twain's 1885 novel, director William Desmond Taylor's Huckleberry Finn (1920) displays a sentimental fondness for the story in a production that typifies the consistent quality associated with Taylor and Paramount Pictures. Huckleberry Finn is also noteworthy as the first theatrical film version of the book and for Esther Ralston's oldest surviving performance in a feature film, as the object of Huck's affection Mary Jane Wilkes.