Les Aventures de Tom Sawyer (1969)

The story is set in the 19th century in a small town on the Mississippi in Missouri, upstream from St. Louis. The main characters are the adolescent friends Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Tom is raised by his Aunt Polly, with whom he lives alongside his little brother. Huckleberry, called Huck or Hucki, is homeless and does not go to school. His father is a drifter. One night, the boys witness a murder in the cemetery. They know who the murderer is: not Muff Potter, the village carpenter whom everyone suspects, but the dangerous Injun Joe. Afraid of his revenge, they swear not to tell anyone about the nighttime tragedy. Instead, they decide to become pirates and live on Jackson Island for the rest of their lives. Tom is also driven to this decision by his disappointment at Becky Thatcher, the girl he adores, laughing at him. On the second night, a deserted ferryboat runs aground near the island. To Tom’s astonishment, he encounters Injun Joe and his new friend Windy there. Despite the violent storm, Tom and Huck manage to escape. After the ferryboat breaks apart in the storm that night, they believe Joe is dead. When they meet him again, however, they decide to free Muff Potter—whom everyone believes to be the murderer—from jail through a tunnel they have dug themselves. But before they can personally tell him about this escape route, Potter escapes and is recaptured a few hours later. Tom decides to tell the truth in court. Injun Joe, who is sitting among the spectators in the courtroom and senses danger, escapes before Tom has even testified. One day, when Tom and Huck encounter him again in a half-ruined house, they eavesdrop on him and his friend Windy and learn that he wants bitter revenge on them. To make matters worse, they have to watch the crooks dig up a treasure they themselves had suspected was buried there. On his way to his sleeping place, Huck comes across Windy and Joe again, eavesdrops on them, and learns of a plot to take revenge on Widow Douglas. He manages to get help in time and thus saves the widow’s life. A few days later, Tom and his friend Becky Thatcher take a trip to McDuff Cave, but get lost there and suddenly run into Injun Joe. Tom and Becky manage to escape. When Tom tells people about his encounter with Injun Joe a little later, they find Joe starved to death in the cave. Soon afterward, Tom and Huck find Injun Joe’s treasure. Huckleberry, who is now living with Widow Douglas out of gratitude, is suddenly pursued by his father, whom everyone had thought dead. His father is after his son’s fortune. While Tom travels to Keokuk, Huck is kidnapped by his father. Huck manages to escape to uninhabited Jackson Island, however, and meets Jim there, the widow’s escaped slave. Jim and Huck flee together to freedom on a raft. On their way, they encounter the steamboat bringing Tom back from his vacation. The raft drifts past without the two friends knowing about each other or seeing one another again. The film ends by stating that Tom and Huck will never see each other again and that their adventures together are over: “Because it is almost exclusively the story of two boys, it must end here too... Without becoming a story about adults.” In Mark Twain’s source work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by contrast, Huckleberry Finn meets his friend Tom Sawyer again at the end, after several adventures that are not depicted in this film adaptation. Tom organizes a spectacular escape for Jim, who has since been recaptured.