As popular as the novel is, there has never been a commercially successful film made from it. Furthermore, no movie version of Tom Sawyer has ever captured the essence of the novel. Many TV films have attempted to capture the unique qualities of the novel but have, for the most part, failed, partly because the novel appeals on two such different levels--that of the adult and that of the child. Perhaps the most successful (and most easily obtained) version is Tom Sawyer, produced by Panavision Films in 1973, which stars Johnny Whitaker as Tom Sawyer, Jodie Foster as Becky Thatcher, and Celeste Holm as Aunt Polly.
The purpose of comparing two such different approaches to a single work is that by doing so, we can more easily see the problems of transferring a story from one medium to another, and in evaluating the changes from one medium to another, we come to a better understanding of the original work.
Like a Broadway musical comedy, the movie begins with an overture and then shows a still picture of the Mississippi River. This shot is accompanied by a musical overture composed by the famous John Williams, winner of many awards for best musical score.
At the beginning of the movie, we hear the school bell ringing and we see Tom Sawyer leaving home, hiding his books, removing his shoes and running barefooted through the town, and arriving at the river's edge where he meets Huck Finn and Muff Potter. Immediately, the person who has read Twain's novel recognizes that this work is different. Huck becomes a central character in the movie (thus his appearance in the opening sequence).
