Huckleberry Finn *** (1974, Jeff East, Paul Winfield, Harvey Korman, David Wayne) – Classic Movie Review 9487

Director J Lee Thompson’s 1974 Huckleberry Finn is the sequel to the 1973 family musical adventure Tom Sawyer, with Jeff East returning from that film as Huckleberry Finn and Lucille Benson back as Widder Douglas.

Huckleberry Finn is an over-sweet and unsubtle but still nice and acceptable musical version talkie version of the Mark Twain classic novel, with Jeff East convincing and pleasing as Huck, helping to compensate for the ordinary Sherman Brothers songs and screenplay.

Trying for appeal to adults, Huckleberry Finn largely fails, though it is brisk and efficient and does look very posh in Laszlo Kovacs’s cinematography and Philip M Jefferies’s production designs.

This time Paul Winfield plays runaway slave Jim, and Harvey Korman and David Wayne are the knockabout conmen The King and The Duke, and all three are very welcome, giving reliable turns.

Huckleberry Finn is bright and pleasant, and there are no surprises. It is more or less what you would expect from a simple Reader’s Digest film from a far-off era.

It is followed by Mr Quilp in 1975.

Also in the cast are Natalie Trundy as Mrs Loftus, Arthur O’Connell as Colonel Grangerford, Gary Merrill as Pap, Kim O’Brien, Jean Fay, Odessa Cleveland, Joe Boris, Danny Lantrip, Van Bennett, Linda Watkins, Jean Combes, Frances Fawcett, Suzanne Prystup, H L Rowley, Doris Owens, Frank Mills, Sherree Sinquefiled, Morris Denton, Hoskins Deterly, Elliott Trimble, Forrest Colebank, Charles C Burns and Orville Meyer.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9487

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