Main Cast: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, C. Aubrey Smith
Release Year: 1944
Country: US
Run Time: 130 minutes
Plot
Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical movie-biography fashion, every single incident that happens in Twain's life is an INSPIRATION: he hears the depth-indication call "Mark Twain" while working on a riverboat and his face lights up; he engages in a jumping-frog contest against Bret Harte (John Carradine) and comes up with his first popular published story; and so on. Alexis Smith is better than usual in the role of Twain's wife Olivia Langdon, even keeping a straight face while Twain courts her in Fluent Quotation ("Everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it", he says during a Hollywood-romance cloudburst). Though the script barely touches upon the dark side of Twain's nature, we are not spared his financial reverses (brought about by bad investments and his struggle to publish Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs. The closing sequence, with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn beckoning the spirit of Mark Twain to heaven as Halley's Comet fills the skies, may seem laughable on paper, but works quite well on film; even director Irving Rapper expressed amazement at the effectiveness of this scene! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Adventures of Mark Twain is a decent biography of half of one of America's most celebrated writers -- half because it tends to present the lighter side of Mark Twain while ignoring the darker side that made him a complex and interesting person and writer. None of the bite or bile that seeps through his writing is presented on the screen, resulting in a fairly sugarcoated character that's certainly pleasant to be with and has a ready supply of witty observations but doesn't come fully alive as a human being. Of course, the film is also prone to the kind of clichés (and factual errors) that Hollywood biopics are famous for, but the clichés at least are handled fairly well. Indeed, director Irving Rapper does a more than decent job all around of keeping things entertaining and interesting; he even makes an ending that could seem unbearably corny into something quite memorable. Obviously, he's aided immeasurably in this by the wonderful performance of Fredric March, who is at all times convincing and melds his own specific charm with that of Twain to create a character that one is happy to spend time with. Mark Twain has more than its share of flaws, but Fredric March makes up for a great deal of them. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Orry-Kelly - Costume Designer, Irving Rapper - Director, Ralph Dawson - Editor, Max Steiner - Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein - Musical Direction/Supervision, Perc Westmore - Makeup, John Hughes - Production Designer, Lawrence W. Butler - Cinematographer, James Leicester - Cinematographer, Sol Polito - Cinematographer, Don Siegel - Cinematographer, Jesse Lasky - Producer, Fred MacLean - Set Designer, Lawrence W. Butler - Special Effects, Edwin Linden - Special Effects, Robert B. Lee - Sound/Sound Designer, Nathan Levinson - Sound Special Effects, Harry Chandlee - Screenwriter, Alan LeMay - Screenwriter, Harry Sherman - Play Author
