The Adventures of Huck Finn | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Stephen Sommers |
Screenplay by | Stephen Sommers |
Based on | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain |
Produced by | Laurence Mark |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Janusz Kamiński |
Edited by | Bob Ducsay |
Music by | Bill Conti |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
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Running time | 107 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $11 million [1] |
Box office | $24.1 million |
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a 1993 American comedy drama adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, and starring Elijah Wood, Courtney B. Vance, Jason Robards and Robbie Coltrane. Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and Buena Vista Pictures, it is based on Mark Twain's 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and focuses on at least three-quarters of the book.
The film follows a boy named Huckleberry Finn and an escaped slave named Jim, who travel the Mississippi River together and overcome various obstacles along the way.
Huckleberry Finn is a half-literate son of Pap Finn, a drunk. One night, his father arrives, and Huck is taken away from his foster family to his father's home. Jealous of Huck's money being kept away, he attacks Huck, but eventually passes out from exhaustion.
Huck fakes his own death and runs away. He is accompanied by Jim, a slave who worked for Huck's foster family, and escaped the family after a slave trader offered to buy him. The duo follow the Mississippi River to Cairo, Illinois, so Jim can escape to freedom without being arrested.
They come across a wanted poster for Jim, falsely saying that he murdered Huck. Jim and Huck come across a sinking barge one night, and Jim notices Huck's father's corpse on the ship. Huck notices two robbers leaving one to drown in a room as the water comes crashing through. Huck and Jim's canoe sinks, but they steal the robber's raft, as the barge completely sinks underwater.
The raft is later struck by a steamboat, and Huck is at first captured by a few men, then taken to the home of the Graingerford family. Huck lies about his life to the Graingerfords to avoid suspicion. The Graingerfords are in a feud with another family, the Shepherdsons. Huck even befriends Billy Graingerford, the Graingerford patriarch's son, but is horrified that Jim has been found by the family and has become a slave. Billy's older sister Sophie runs away to marry a Shepherdson, thus a short firefight happens, killing all the male Graingerfords, including Billy.
Jim and Huck find themselves past Cairo, and two con men: The Duke and The King, join Huck and Jim. The quartet land at Phelps Landing, and The King and The Duke impersonate British members of the Wilkes family to con three sisters, Mary Jane, Julia, and Susan, out of their fortune.
Meanwhile, Jim has been taken to prison for Huck's murder, and tells Huck about his dead father, thus Huck rebukes Jim. Huck puts the money in the coffin of a recently deceased Wilkes family member. He exposes The King and The Duke as con men to Mary Jane the next day, and tells her not to tell the town until 10:00 that night, when a steamboat to Cairo departs.
Dr. Robinson doesn't trust The King and The Duke's scheme, and the real members of the family, whom The King and The Duke were impersonating, show up. The town dig up the buried coffin where the money was put, and thus tar and feather The Duke and The King, and become an angry mob. Huck breaks Jim out of prison, but they are spotted by the mob.
While escaping, Huck is shot in the back. Jim sacrifices his chance to escape to freedom and carries Huck to the mob, allowing himself to be hanged. Before the mob can hang Jim, however, Mary Jane, Julia, and Susan arrive and stop the hanging from happening. The mob sets Jim free, and Huck passes out.
Huck wakes up in the Wilkes homestead and learns that Jim's master Miss Watson, who was also one of Huck's caretakers, died, setting Jim free in her will. The other caretaker plans on civilizing Huck, but Huck, narrating the story, says, "I've been there before." The film ends with Huck running off into the sunset.
Principal photography for The Adventures of Huck Finn took place from August 26 to October 23, 1992 in Natchez, Mississippi. [1] The first day of filming was interrupted by the arrival of Hurricane Andrew which forced the shoot indoors at the Twin Oaks mansion. The Dunleith Historic Inn served as the "Grangerford" estate in the film. Additional filming took place at the Rosalie Mansion, Santon Hall, Under the Hill Saloon, and the Natchez Garden Pilgrimage Club. An onscreen kiss between Wood and Bundy was filmed but not included in the final film. [1]
Bill Conti's score to The Adventures of Huck Finn was released in 1993 by Varèse Sarabande. [2]
Track listing
The Adventures of Huck Finn was a financial success, debuting at number two at the box office, [3] and grossing over $24 million. [4]
The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and currently holds a 75% "fresh" rating at review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 reviews. [5] Noted critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing "The story of Huck and Jim has been told in six or seven earlier movies, and now comes The Adventures of Huck Finn, a graceful and entertaining version by a young director named Stephen Sommers, who doesn't dwell on the film's humane message, but doesn't avoid it, either." [6]
The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc on November 24, 1993. [7] The DVD was released on January 15, 2002, [8] On February 10, 2009 the film was released double feature with Tom and Huck (1995). [9]
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.
Tom and Huck is a 1995 American adventure comedy-drama film based on Mark Twain's 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Brad Renfro, Mike McShane, Eric Schweig, and Amy Wright. The film was directed by Peter Hewitt and produced/co-written by Stephen Sommers. The film was released in North America on December 22, 1995.
Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a musical with music and lyrics by Roger Miller, and a book by William Hauptman.
Huckleberry Finn and His Friends is a 1979 television series documenting the exploits of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, based on the novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by American writer Mark Twain. The series consists of 26 episodes and was a Canadian/West German international co-production.
Tom Sawyer is the 1973 American musical film adaptation of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and was directed by Don Taylor. The film was produced by Reader's Digest in collaboration with Arthur P. Jacobs, and its screenplay and songs were written by both of the Sherman Brothers, Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman.
Huckleberry Finn is a 1974 musical film version of Mark Twain's 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Hopelessly Lost is a 1973 Soviet adventure film directed by Georgiy Daneliya based on Mark Twain's 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Cinematography by Vadim Yusov. It was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
Jim is one of two major characters in the classic 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The book chronicles his and Huckleberry's raft journey down the Mississippi River in the antebellum Southern United States. Jim is a black man who is fleeing slavery; "Huck", a 13-year-old white boy, joins him in spite of his own conventional understanding and the law.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation of Mark Twain's 1884 novel of the same name, starring Mickey Rooney in the title role. The supporting cast features Walter Connolly, William Frawley and Rex Ingram. It was remade by MGM in 1960. A musical version was released in 1974.
Huckleberry no Bōken (ハックルベリィの冒険) is a Japanese anime television series based on the 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain that aired on the Fuji Television network every Friday evening from January 2, 1976 to June 25 of the same year, for a total of 26 episodes. It is the first of two Huckleberry Finn anime. A second Huck Finn television series was made in 1994, Huckleberry Finn Monogatari.
Huckleberry "Huck" Finn is a fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and is the protagonist and narrator of its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). He is 12 to 13 years old during the former and a year older at the time of the latter. Huck also narrates Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective, two shorter sequels to the first two books.
Tom Sawyer is a 1930 American pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Jackie Coogan. The screenplay by Grover Jones, William Slavens McNutt, and Sam Mintz is based on the 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a 1960 American drama film directed by Michael Curtiz. Based on the 1884 novel of the same name by Mark Twain, it was the third sound film version of the story and the second filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was the first adaptation of Huckleberry Finn to be filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor. It stars Eddie Hodges as Huck and former boxer Archie Moore as the runaway slave Jim. Tony Randall also appeared in the film, and Buster Keaton had a bit role in what proved to be his final film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, his former studio. Neville Brand portrayed Pap Finn, Huck's alcoholic father.
Huckleberry Finn is a 1931 American pre-Code adventure comedy film directed by Norman Taurog, and written by Grover Jones and William Slavens McNutt, based on Mark Twain's 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It stars Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer, Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher, Junior Durkin as Huckleberry Finn, and Jackie Searl as Sid Sawyer.
Huckleberry Finn is a surviving American silent dramatic rural film from 1920, based on Mark Twain's 1884 classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It was produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. William Desmond Taylor directed Huckleberry Finn, as he had the 1917 film version of Tom Sawyer, using a scenario written by Julia Crawford Ivers, who also had been the writer for Tom Sawyer.
Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is a 1990 American television family drama film directed by Paul Krasny and written by Roy Johansen, based on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. It aired on the Disney Channel on October 21, 1990. In the film, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn work to save their friend Jim from a charge of murder.
Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is a 1982 American made-for-television adventure film originally broadcast February 27, 1982 on CBS as the TV Movie of the Week. CBS financed the film with a $2.2 million budget and the working title was The Further Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The film was shot on location in Natchez, Mississippi in the fall of 1981 where the filmmakers added dirt to the street of the historic town. The movie features early roles for Cynthia Nixon and Anthony Michael Hall. It was the first major role for then-child actor and future award-winning filmmaker Patrick Creadon, who starred as Tom. The teleplay was written by Carlos Davis and David Taylor. It was directed by Dick Lowry and produced by his brother Hunt Lowry.
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a 1955 CBS TV film adaptation of Mark Twain's 1884 novel of the same name, starring Charles Taylor in the title role. It was directed by Herbert B. Swope Jr. It aired on September 1, 1955 as the Season 2 premiere of the anthology program Climax!.
James is a novel by author Percival Everett published by Doubleday in 2024. The novel is a re-imagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain but told from the perspective of Huckleberry's friend on his travels, Jim, who is an escaped slave.