| Huckleberry Finn | |
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| Directed by | J. Lee Thompson |
| Produced by | Arthur P. Jacobs |
| Written by | Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman, Mark Twain |
| Starring | Jeff East Paul Winfield Harvey Korman |
| Music by | Richard M. Sherman Robert B. Sherman Fred Werner |
| Cinematography | László Kovács |
| Editing by | Michael F. Anderson |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | (USA) May 24, 1974 (Sweden) March 3, 1975 |
| Running time | 118 min. |
| Country | UK / U.S. |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Tom Sawyer |
| IMDb profile | |
Huckleberry Finn is a musical film version of the Mark Twain boyhood adventure story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It starred Jeff East as Huckleberry Finn and Paul Winfield as Jim. The movie was produced by Reader's Digest and Arthur P. Jacobs famous for producing the Planet of the Apes series of motion pictures. Along with the Twain story, the film was also a musical, with memorable screenplay and songs by the ubiquitous "Sherman Brothers," aka Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman. Songs such as "Freedom" and "Cairo, Illinois" are particularly memorable. This film was a follow-up to the previous years' highly successful Tom Sawyer which was produced and written by the same team. Jeff East played the role of "Huckleberry" as well. But unfortunately, 1974's Huckleberry Finn was riddled with setbacks. First and foremost was the death of Arthur Jacobs half way through shooting. The second problem was the poor direction of J. Lee Thompson who didn't seem to know how to handle synchronized musical direction. Third was the unfortunate timing of writer Robert B. Sherman's artificial knee operation (also mid shoot, and amongst the first procedure of its kind). With no competent pilot at the helm, the Huckleberry raft ran adrift and scattered into an unmendable number of pieces. Roberta Flack sang the beautiful lost classic, "Freedom" but insisted on guitar backing her up. She threatened to sue if the Original Cast album were released with heavy orchestra and so although the album was recorded and printed, it was never released. There are still some excellent moments in the film, and wonderful musical numbers "Freedom" being one of them.
Cast
- Jeff East as Huckleberry Finn
- Paul Winfield as Jim
- Harvey Korman as The King
- David Wayne as The Duke
- Arthur O'Connell as Col. Grangerford
- Gary Merrill as Pap
- Natalie Trundy as Mrs. Loftus
- Lucille Benson as Widder Douglas
- Kim O'Brien as Maryjane Wilks
- Jean Fay as Susan Wilks
- Ruby Leftwich as Miss Watson
- Odessa Cleveland as Jim's wife
Songs
The song was written by the Sherman Brothers.
- Freedom. Sung by Roberta Flack. Flack did not approve of the musical arrangement and threatened a lawsuit if the Original Cast album were not remastered to her liking.
- Cairo, Illinois. Sung by Jeff East and Paul Winfield.
- Rotten Luck. It was sung by Gary Merrill. The entire song was filmed sans-sync except for the final line of the song in which we see Merrill look back at the cabin and say, "And now my luck... It ain't so bad!". The unsynchronized direction of this musical number did not work very well and did not seem motivated or natural.
- A Rose In A Bible.
- Someday, Honey Darlin'. Sung by Paul Winfield.
- Royalty!. Suung by Harvey Korman.
- The Royal Nonesuch. Sung by Harvey Korman.
- What's Right, What's Wrong?. Sung by Jeff East.
- Into His Hands. Sung by Harvey Korman.
References
- Sherman, Robert B. Walt's Time: from before to beyond. Pages: 178-181, Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998.
