1st watched 1/27/2010 - 7 out of 10 (Dir-Michael Curtiz): Charming adaptation of Mark Twain's novel is fun and well played for the most part. The story revolves around an upstart boy of the title who has an alcoholic father and overly religious aunt that brings him to a point of faking his own death in order to escape and debark on an adventure to New Orleans by way of the Mississippi River. He brings along a slave named Jim and they meet up with various characters with Huck always playing himself out of messes by pretending and making up stories. Eddie Hodges as Huck and Archie Moore as Jim make up a good team as the pair who really need each other. Jim was blamed for Huck's death so his goal is to escape North into Illinois so he can be a free man as well escaping the law. Huck is just avoiding his sad life in hopes for an adventure. He actually makes the adventures happen as he goes along including an escapade with a couple of crooks posing as the King of France and a Duke. Huck is a pretty smart cookie, though, and knows when to escape from them but they come back later in the story to try and turn Jim into the authorities for the ransom money. Tony Curtis plays the King and is supposedly the star of the movie but doesn't really add much to the movie by his performance -- the real stars are the actors in the main characters already mentioned. When the movie ends, you want to carry on with the characters to see what happens to them next and this shows the true wealth of the story. I don't ever think Twain make a Huck 2 though, which is a shame.
Review of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
