The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944 film)

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For the 1985 stop motion animated film, see The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985 film).

The Adventures of Mark Twain

Directed by	Irving Rapper
Produced by	Jesse L. Lasky
Written by	Alan Le May
Starring	Fredric March Alexis Smith
Music by	Max Steiner
Cinematography	Sol Polito
Editing by	Ralph Dawson
Release date(s)	July 22, 1944
Running time	130 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Adventures of Mark Twain is a 1944 live action biographical film.

The film stars Fredric March as Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and Alexis Smith as his wife, Olivia. It was produced at Warner Brothers, and directed by Irving Rapper, with music by Max Steiner. It was nominated for three Academy Awards at the 17th Academy Awards: Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White (John Hughes & Fred M. MacLean); Best Effects, Special Effects (Paul Detlefsen (photographic), John Crouse (photographic), & Nathan Levinson (sound)); and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Max Steiner). It did not win any awards. [1]

1 The Story
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] The Story

This film really doesn't have a plot–it is an extended series of scenes that illustrate the essence of Samuel Clemen's life with only a limited relationship to the events and chronology of his actual life. It is sort of a fantasy on Mark Twain.

The film opens with a group of people, mostly African–Americans, on a hill side watching Halley's Comet pass overhead. Judge Clemens is called away for the birth of his son, Sam Clements. That much is sort of true. But following a brief comment by an elderly Clemens is a scene with Sam, and his friends Huck, Tom and Jim on a raft on the Mississippi, providing a "real–life" basis for Twain's most famous novels. A little later, when Clemens is living in Nevada, he and a friend participate in a jumping frog contest with Bret Harte, a "real–life" basis for Twain's first major story. Neither has any basis in reality.

The lack of reality extends to the final scene, where Clemens dies in bed as once again Halley's Comet appears. After his death, his spirit appears and is called away by Tom and Huck to join them in a Heavenly world.

Only loosely based on Clemens's life, the film rearranges events in ways that defy both history and logic. For example, the film shows Clemens working as a journalist in Nevada when he learns of the outbreak of the Civil War and then has him leave Nevada in order to fight for the Confederacy. In real life, Clemens went to Nevada after the war started, partly to get away from the war.

Later in the film, Henry Huttleston Rogers warns Clemens that if he allows his (Clemens's) publishing company to publish Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs, he will go bankrupt. Clemens replies that the country owes the former Union commander such a debt of gratitude that going bankrupt would be a small price to pay. In reality, Clemens's company did publish Grant's memoirs--about eight years before Clemens met Rogers--and the venture was a huge success. Clemens's company did, in fact, eventually go bankrupt, but its failure had nothing to do with its publication of Grant's memoirs.

Later still, the film has a scene set in Italy, where Clemens' wife, Livy, insists that he go to Oxford University to accept an honorary degree; shortly afterward, she dies. It is a very moving scene; however, Clemens was living in New York City when he received his invitation to go to Oxford in 1907. Livy had died in Italy three years earlier.

Similar liberties with the facts of Clemens' life permeate the film, but Frederic March nevertheless provides a moving and convincing portrayal of Clemens. It includes some of his famous public sayings, often included in the numerous public appearances he made throughout the world. Actor Hal Holbrook later re-created Clemens' speaking tours with his own Mark Twain Tonight shows.

One important fact depicted in the film is that he was born during an appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835 and died when it returned in 1910. (see Halley's Comet, 1835 entry.)