Tom Sawyer (1973)

Director: Don Taylor
Writer: Robert B. Sherman & Richard M. Sherman, based on the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Stars: Johnny Whitaker, Celeste Holm, Warren Oates, Jeff East and Jodie Foster

Index: The First Thirty.

While I can’t say that any of the three Jodie Foster movies before this will become abiding favourites of mine, I enjoyed them all. This is a film I’d describe mostly as “disappointing”.

For one, it’s a musical. While I’m very much looking forward to Bugsy Malone because it was so different from anything else out there, this is just another musical whose songs got in the way of the story. There are nine. I enjoyed two of them and didn’t mind a third, but the rest I could have happily done without.

I should point out here that the songs were written by the Sherman Brothers, Richard and Robert, who also wrote songs for what must be every other Disney film, including many of the most lively, cheerful and characterful songs in films like Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book. These aren’t their best.

For two, it doesn’t have a particularly large part for Jodie Foster, an annoying trend in her early films. She’s fairly cast as Becky Thatcher and she gets a glorious introductory scene, as Tom first sees her upside down because he’s in a tree hanging from his feet. I seem to recall that the character had far more of a role in the book than she does in the movie. Foster does good work early but not so much late.

I recently saw a video in which she said that she had never planned to act. She got into it because her brother did and he only did as the kid across the street did. I didn’t feel that over four films until the caverns at the end of this one, when a few lines felt lackadaisical.

For three, I didn’t like Johnny Whitaker here as Tom Sawyer, because he didn’t seem right. I liked him a lot in Napoleon and Samantha but I’d have thought Mitch Vogel, from Menace on the Mountain, would have been a much better fit for Tom. Then again, maybe he isn’t a singer. Whitaker sings two of these songs solo and a couple more with others.

For four, in much the same way, I didn’t like Jeff East as Huckleberry Finn. Sure, it’s been a long time since I’ve read Mark Twain’s novels, but neither of these characters rang true to me. I left this film with absolutely no intention of continuing on into the following year’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a sequel in every way, with East and Lucille Benson returning as Huck and Widow Martha Douglas, who adopts him, respectively.

All that said, there’s good to be found in this film, which is disappointing rather than bad.

I liked Celeste Holm as Tom’s Aunt Polly, an authoritarian jailer to him but a good woman to us. She did a good deed taking him in and it is abundantly clear that she loves him, even as frustrating as it must be having a boy like that growing up as part of her household. Many of those frustrations make it into the first good song, Tom Sawyer!, a solo for Holm until Tom’s cousins join in. Holm carries both sides of it.

Even better is Warren Oates as Muff Potter, a gift of a part for a character actor of his vast talents. He steals every scene he’s in, through sheer instinct, though maybe his frequent use of his thumb as a sort of dowsing rod to locate bottles of alcohol he’s stashed around town is a more deliberate technique. His choice of hat was enough to steal scenes all on its own.

He’s not close to being the singer that Holm is, or frankly any of the many actors here who sing, but his number, A Man’s Gotta Be (What He Was Born to Be), is the best by far, and Whitaker and East back him as it builds. It reminded me less of the Sherman Brothers’ Disney work and more of Lionel Bart’s for Oliver!

Rather ironically, given that this was made by Reader’s Digest, of all people, it feels like it was condensed from Twain’s novel. It follows it pretty closely but nine songs over a hundred minutes clearly meant cuts to the story, which doesn’t help the movie. I remember lots more Injun Joe and Becky Thatcher and there was a big buried treasure angle that’s totally gone.

Oddly, some of the darker material on offer was kept in place, like the body snatching with murder and the scary ending in the caverns as Injun Joe seeks his revenge. Nowadays, maybe the classroom caning scene might fit alongside those as darker material, but it’s true to the times. However, all these scenes are rendered a little more family friendly and other scenes are sanitised even further.

Didn’t Tom originally run away from home to be a pirate on Jackson’s Island? That turns into a simple accident here, nobody’s fault. A lot is made of how much Huck cusses but he’s unable to actually do that in a family movie, so every mention becomes pointless.

I’m sure I sound negative at this point, so I’ll again emphasise this is disappointing not bad.

The film is shot capably, using Missouri and the Missouri River as worthy substitutes for Missisisippi and the Big Muddy, an important backdrop to this story.

The paddle steamer is great to see. It doesn’t play a huge part in proceedings other than as background, but it represents a connection as much as the river. It’s the Julia Belle Swain, as the River Queen, a role it reprised in Huckleberry Finn and during titles for Huckleberry Finn and His Friends, a 1979 TV show made in Canada.

As much as I feel that prominent parts were miscast, the actors all do a good job, even if Holm and Oates stand out above the rest.

Henry O’Brien, credited as Kunu Hank, is an impressively scary Injun Joe who gets scarier as the story goes, even if many opportunities are squandered. At one point, with him firmly believed to be long gone from town, he makes a new appearance upstairs at Aunt Polly’s that nobody there realises. It’s not a great moment in this film, but it so easily could have been.

Another character who deserved better was Dr. Robinson, who’s clearly involved in things he shouldn’t be. Richard Eastham isn’t bad at all, but the story has zero interest in him, only where his deeds takes Muff and Injun Joe. This made me want to go back to the original book to refresh myself on many of the background elements. It’s probably been forty years.

I’m also tempted to go back to the 1938 film version, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which is also faithful to the novel but without cutting it to make room for songs. Oddly, given that the story is so quintessentially American, most of its adaptations aren’t. 1936’s was Soviet, 1960 British and 1969 Mexican. 1968 was Romanian, both on film and on TV. Maybe I should check out the other 1973 version, a CBS TV movie with Buddy Ebsen as Muff Potter.