Review of Tom Sawyer

Mark Twain's timeless story turned into a wholesome, plastic-coated musical with cutesy-poo asides and unmemorable songs. Composers Richard and Robert Sherman also adapted the screenplay, but they don't have the feel of Twain's prose down (or perhaps the book is singularly impossible to adequately get on film?). Johnny Whitaker, a fine child actor of the 1970s, tries his best as young Tom Sawyer, a hell-raisin', tall tale-tellin' ragamuffin in 1840s Hannibal, Missouri; Whitaker isn't a singer (not many in the cast are), yet these songs would likely trip anybody up. Instantly forgettable, the lead-in for each tune takes an excruciating four or five seconds of hesitation, as if this were an old musical from the 1940s. Despite real Missouri locations, there isn't much here that rings true. Not Celeste Holm's Aunt Polly (who punishes Tom and then smiles wistfully at his antics, ready to burst into song), nor Warren Oates as whiskey-swillin' Muff Potter. Jeff East is sorely miscast as Tom's best friend, drop-out Huckleberry Finn (East appears to have wandered in from the nearest citified casting agency), although Jodie Foster is nearly-perfect as girlfriend Becky Thatcher (it probably helped that Foster and Whitaker had already made a picture together, 1972's "Napoleon and Samantha", as they have a built-in rapport which is immediately apparent). The 1800s milieu--from the schoolhouse to the riverboat landing to the picnic grounds--is distinctly artificial, rendering the end results a misfire in a sub-Disney vein. Reader's Digest financed the project (they followed this with a sequel, "Huckleberry Finn", in 1974), and were nearly trumped by a TV-version of Twain's book which aired the same week this movie premiered! *1/2 from ****