Huckleberry Finn: Anyone catch the Mongoose on TCM two days ago?

[APerno]

Huckleberry Finn 1960

If you didn't see it good. It was terrible and it was not Archie Moore's fault.

The kid (Huck Finn) is 'the worst child actor ever" - let me clarify that, he is 'the worst child actor ever!"

But forget the kid , it is the director that should be found and then severely beaten for the way he handle Moore.

Someone (the director) told Archie, "remember every time you move make sure you shuffle." So Archie did, it was embarrassing and angering to watch. - You have a great athlete with superb kinetic capabilities in front of you and all this fornicating director does is tell him to shuffle.

Forget the obvious racial shit involved here, as a director you are suppose to know 'movement.' Actor movement and camera movement. This complete idiot has in front of him a man who can move better than 99.9 percent of the population, so he has him repeat an obvious unnatural shuffle over and over again, for an hour and a half.

I realize Moore was playing "Jim" but there is much more to Twain's "Jim" than a fornicating shuffle.

And then he makes a good decision, he decides to give Archie 'the camera' but never takes the time to teach him 'how to listen.' Long shots, 30 to 90 seconds long, of close-ups of the kid and Archie. The kid babbles on endlessly through these horrible monologues with Archie standing there frozen solid, never reacting to the dialogue being spoken, he just stands there frozen like he is too scare to even blink his eyes.

My god I have seen Archie in interviews, he's bright, witty, and articulate; but this stupid son of a bitch (the director) was clueless how to use Archie.

They say an actor has to trust he director, especially a novice actor, but in this case Archie should have soak the fornicator in gasoline and struck a match.

Well anyway I just needed to say that; don't watch the film it seriously sucks (and it's not Archie Moore's fault.)

[Caractacus]

C'mon that that a really good version of Huckleberry Finn (and I seen em' all).
especially atrmposheric when they are on the raft and get aboard that abandoned boat.

[APerno]

C'mon that that a really good version of Huckleberry Finn (and I seen em' all).
especially atrmposheric when they are on the raft and get aboard that abandoned boat.

Ah come on . . . there is a 1939 version titled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn staring Mick Rooney. That version (at times) uses the language directly from the novel and Jim is played by Rex Ingram.

But let me repeat I do not blame Archie Moore for his poor performance. What shocks me about this version is that the director I am complaining about is none other than Michael Curtiz, (Casablanca) who was a great director, but he must have been burnt out by then.

[Caractacus]

I saw this at a Saturday matinee back in the early 1970's.
It was in "Cinemascope" so maybe it looses something seeing it on a TV.
Anyway Archie Moore still sang that one song "I Ain't Never Felt So Good Before"
to himself for years afterwards,like when he was flying to somewhere and places like that.