Tom Sawyer Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Tom Sawyer Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 29, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Tom Sawyer / Huckleberry Finn.

Was Arthur P. Jacobs a masochist, or at least a glutton for punishment? Jacobs didn’t have a ton of credits as a producer, but he did have a couple of sizable hits in vastly different genres with both What a Way to Go! in 1964 and Planet of the Apes in 1968. However, in between those two smashes Jacobs made the perhaps unfortunate choice to produce one of the biggest behemoth flops of the decade, the musical version of Doctor Dolittle, which came out in 1967 and threatened to erase all of the profits 20th Century Fox was still amassing from The Sound of Music. Jacobs may have been stung from the experience, since by all accounts there were frequently bouts of chaos during both pre-production and the actual shoot, and once the film opened, things went from bad to worse. That said, Jacobs must have subscribed to the “pick yourself up and dust yourself off” adage, because a mere two years later he was back with another musicalized version of a classic British tome, the 1969 version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which, while less costly and troublesome than Doctor Dolittle, was another pretty spectacular flop at the box office. (It might be noted in passing that Jacobs had a kind of annus horribilis in 1969, since his non- musical The Chairman didn’t exactly have hordes lined up at the ticket booth begging to get into a showing.) Some producers may have stopped at those two musical strike outs, but Jacobs persevered, and in fact as the seventies got underway Jacobs reportedly entered into a multi-picture deal with the Sherman Brothers, who had of course become household names initially courtesy of their long association with Walt Disney and such classics as Mary Poppins. Kind of interestingly, Jacobs had had Leslie Bricusse write both the screenplay and music and lyrics for Doctor Dolittle, but by the time Goodbye, Mr. Chips rolled around, had consigned Bricusse solely to composing and lyric writing duties, with Terence Rattigan handling the screenplay. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn returned to the Doctor Dolittle model, with the Sherman Brothers providing both screenplay and song score for both pictures.

Both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn feature what might be thought of as “bookend” songs performed by folks not in the cast, in what might have been a marketing ploy to get airplay and potentially an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, something that the Shermans of course were experts at (but which they failed to do in either instance in this regard). Tom Sawyer features country star Charley Pride singing “River Song”, which ably sets up this “story of a boy”. Tom (Johnny Whitaker) is a rascal, to be sure, but he has a good heart and at least occasionally engaged conscience, though he is the intermittent bane of his Aunt Polly’s (Celeste Holm) existence.

While the film is kind of vignette driven, the main plot thrust involves Tom and best buddy Huckleberry Finn (Jeff East, who would recreate the role in the film bearing that name) who are on a kind of whimsical quest to “resurrect” the dead cat of “Widder” (i.e., Widow) Douglas (Lucille Benson), but who literally stumble into a scene where Injun Joe (Kunu Hank) murders the town doctor, Robinson (Richard Eastham). Unfortunately, one of the boys’ best friends, a kind of town drunk named Muff Potter (Warren Oates) is accused of the murder, and Tom is called as a star witness.

A number of sidebars unfold, including the famous scene of Tom convincing all the neighborhood kids to whitewash a fence Aunt Polly has tasked Tom with, as well as the arrival of young Becky Thatcher (Jodie Foster) to town. Ultimately, Tom and Huck attempt to escape the confines of their small town, leading to a semi-disaster which in turn convinces the town that both boys have perished. All comes to an appropriately happy ending, of course.

Tom Sawyer benefits from some winning performances and a really authentic looking production design, which capably reproduces 19th century Missouri. The song score is often quite deft, if arguably not at Mary Poppins or even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang levels, and it’s helped immeasurably by the smart orchestrations afforded by John Williams (who had performed similar duties with the Bricusse score for Goodbye, Mr. Chips).

Tom Sawyer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tom Sawyer is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. While this film kind of famously was "presented" by Reader's Digest (as was Huckleberry Finn a year later), it was distributed by United Artists, and I'm assuming this master was culled from the MGM-UA archives. While colors can occasionally be just slightly drab looking, for the most part this is a nicely vivid presentation which offers good detail levels and when close-ups are utilized some excellent fine detail levels. One thing I noticed in the presentations of both films is how a lot of the "river" material has a much grittier looking grain field, and I'm curious if perhaps a different stock was utilized for the location work (you can see some of the variances in many of the screenshots of outdoor riverside scenes in this film and in the screenshots uploaded to the Huckleberry Finn Blu-ray review as well). The graveyard scene where Injun Joe kills the good (?) doctor has some minor contrast fluctuations and a lack of good fine detail, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Tom Sawyer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tom Sawyer has several different audio options (unlike Huckleberry Finn, which offers only one main audio option in addition to its isolated score track). DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, 4.0 and 2.0 tracks are available. I frankly didn't hear a huge difference between the two surround tracks, though the 5.1 track arguably has a bit more "oomph" in the low end. Both of the surround tracks nicely open up the musical elements while also providing good placement of a glut of ambient environmental effects courtesy of the many outdoor scenes. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and I noticed no issues with regard to dropouts, distortion or other damage.

Tom Sawyer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Isolated Music Track is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.


• Audio Commentary with Director Don Taylor and Screenwriters/Songwriters Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman


• Audio Commentary with Screenwriter/Songwriter Richard M. Sherman is new to this release and is moderated by Bruce Kimmel.


• River Song Featurette (480p; 10:03) is a vintage EPK with some fun candid footage.


• Rehearsal with John Williams and the Sherman Brothers (480p; 2:21) is a brief but enjoyable piece with the brothers playing "Gratifaction" for Williams, who doesn't seem to have that much familiarity with the project yet. Listen to how one of the brothers keeps trying to slip in comments to Williams about how Williams needs to add a banjo to the orchestration, it's quite charming but also kind of funny.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (480p; 3:08)

Tom Sawyer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As Richard M. Sherman is quoted as saying in the insert booklet of this release, there's no way he and his sibling could have adapted the entirety of Twain's tale for a reasonably timed feature film (especially considering the fact that "singing and dancing" would be a part of the proceedings), and so this Tom Sawyer is kind of ironically a Reader's Digest version of Twain's source novel. There are some fun tunes in the score, even if nothing rises to the level of the Shermans' most beloved pieces, and the film benefits from strong performances and a really handsome physical production. Technical merits are solid, and Tom Sawyer comes Recommended.