It's still the same old story...but what a story. This umpteenth filmization of the classic Mark Twain novel stars Ron Howard as Huck and Donny Most as Tom Sawyer. After faking his own murder to escape his brutish Pap (played by Howard's real-life father Rance), Huck and fugitive slave Jim (Antonio Fargas) fashion a raft and head off down the Mississippi. The darker elements and sociological commentary of the Twain original are carefully excised from this version, the better to allow more time for the antics of those "royal" rapscallions, the King (Jack Elam) and the Duke (Merle Haggard). Mark Twain himself makes a guest appearance, in the person of Royal Dano. Filmed along the Sacramento River in California (a frequent movie "stand-in" for the Mississippi), Huckleberry Finn was first broadcast March 25, 1975. ~


The Mark Twain perennial with freckle-faced Ron Howard and most of his family -- father Rance, mother Jean, brother Clint -- in this TV update of the classic. Previous Huck Finns on film were Lewis Sargent in 1919, Junior Durkin (1931) in the Jackie Cooper movie about Tom Sawyer, Mickey Rooney (1939), Eddie Hodges (1960) and Jeff East (to Johnny Whittaker's Tom Sawyer) in both 1973 and 1974.