The main draw of this biopic is the genial, laid back performance of Fredric March as American writer Mark Twain.
The movie is structured kind of like a collection of Twain stories, with little vignettes in Twain's life that served as the inspiration for his fiction. None of it is super engaging, but I suppose it's entertaining enough if you're in the mood for a quiet, black and white movie that doesn't ask much of you. The hagiography toward the end is ladled on a bit thick, but that's par for the course in biopics from this time period, or really in biopics made now, for that matter.
Back in the day when there were umpteen nominees per category, "The Adventures of Mark Twain" snagged three Oscar nominations. One was for its black and white art direction, one for its score, courtesy of Max Steiner (and probably most deserved of the three), and the third, weirdly, was for its special effects. There aren't many obvious effects in the movie aside from a scene where Twain steers a steamboat through a tight channel, and another late in the movie where some characters from his past appear in miniature on his writing desk. But I guess it didn't take much to get nominated for special effects back then.
Grade: B.
The movie is structured kind of like a collection of Twain stories, with little vignettes in Twain's life that served as the inspiration for his fiction. None of it is super engaging, but I suppose it's entertaining enough if you're in the mood for a quiet, black and white movie that doesn't ask much of you. The hagiography toward the end is ladled on a bit thick, but that's par for the course in biopics from this time period, or really in biopics made now, for that matter.
Back in the day when there were umpteen nominees per category, "The Adventures of Mark Twain" snagged three Oscar nominations. One was for its black and white art direction, one for its score, courtesy of Max Steiner (and probably most deserved of the three), and the third, weirdly, was for its special effects. There aren't many obvious effects in the movie aside from a scene where Twain steers a steamboat through a tight channel, and another late in the movie where some characters from his past appear in miniature on his writing desk. But I guess it didn't take much to get nominated for special effects back then.
Grade: B.