Two Sure-Fire and Past a Century Old

 

"Written by Mark Twain" Said Credits

True or no? --- most films improve upon novels they adapt. Why buy books for adapt to movies? Many are useful as pre-sell. Lots have a concept surefire, can’t miss. How was Jaws anything other than bulletproof for screens? Mark Twain wrote The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, two not taught much at school, but bore his name on covers and him having wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn made all subsequent classics by default. Fact is Pauper/Yankee had ideas a natural for picturization. Lookalike boys switch identities, complication ensues, presto makes and remakes on screen. And what of time travel to valor and jousts? Mark Twain lived long enough to let at least one of his stories be screen-adapted. I could believe he would have seen Prince and Yankee on filmic terms had films been around when he wrote the two novels. Bernard DeVoto was the twentieth century’s leading Twain/Clemons scholar. He found The Prince and the Pauper “second-rate” but conceded it had “structure … developed from within,” that last known necessity to Classic Era filmmaking and manna to whoever was put to scripting Clemons. Again, and as with all adapted from literature, there was right-away critic assumption that result would not live up to its source. DeVoto as spokesman for the learned may well have seen Warner’s 1937 Prince and the Pauper and come away figuring it was at least as good as source material having “already lost (its) luster” (DeVoto wrote this of the Twain novel in 1946) but would “still charm children as it once charmed Victorian adults.” Here was faintest praise, DeVoto figuring grown-ups, even youngsters after 1946, too sophisticated to enjoy Mark Twain’s fancy. Think was and is as of 2026. I dug out The Prince and the Pauper plus A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to see (or read) if indeed we are too advanced for either. Verdict: Both are comfortably ahead of us. In fact, try most any nineteenth century work on WTF/OMG generation and prep for a fall.

To no surprise, I found The Prince and the Pauper a plenty sophisticated read, even as DeVoto called it kid stuff. Here was still child level as measured by 1946 education not so far declined from Twain’s time where him and those as motivated took self-improvement by daily if not hourly dose. The author has his “pauper” seek Latin study from an as-impoverished priest, then uses acquired knowledge to thrive among if not lead beggar-boy class he is suddenly heir to, such character device to make us wonder what rewards might come of latter-day boys and girls gearing toward humanities, speech, communication, even as public education shuns these things. Could skills unique and of real value (pecuniary even) come of this? I like how the Pauper teaches himself to read and uses that to assist his masquerade as the Prince once the two swap identities. Mark Twain got in digs at inhumane system that was English life in the sixteenth century. This author went medieval on then times plus current ones, his social commentary bitter as in relentlessly so. He wrote in Connecticut Yankee how “terror” of the French Revolution was as nothing beside suffering haves had imposed upon have-nots for thousands of years leading up to turn of eighteenth-to-nineteenth century, and so what if a few thousand aristocrats got theirs on French scaffolds? They had it coming, says MT. Hanged (right word) if this didn’t feel like reading modern and radicalized fiction today. It’s known that Mark Twain’s wife vetted what he wrote and laid a heavy blue pencil where he went overboard, which apparently was often. Twain wrote pal William Dean Howells that “there wouldn’t be so many things left out” if he could do his books over again, this time with “a pen warmed up in hell.”

Mark Twain offered much opinion with regard “the damned human race,” such sentiment the more as he got older and life dealt deuces rather than aces previous. Most writers get a little caustic as they go, but his stuff heated sufficient for the estate to put lids on much, and for years after Twain’s 1910 passing, this a bur under DeVoto’s seat because he wanted Mark Twain out there and unexpurgated. Warts-and-all had to wait till survivor daughter Clara at-late-date relented and gave DeVoto keys to the store, Twain nevermore a benign old humorist in the ice cream suit. His senior output is tough swimming but let no one say this author threw soft balls. Check sometime his letters just to various editors, never mind private correspondence more explicit. Man as barbarous is threaded through Prince/Pauper and Connecticut Yankee. And I thought Injun Joe was the meanest tool in Mark Twain’s kit. Warner Bros. in 1937 needed kid gloves to handle The Prince and the Pauper, Twain’s spelled-out truth of London life an impossibility for Code Hollywood. Laird Doyle of campus wit past and previous Greenbriar celebration was put to softening-plus-getting values generous within the book, mere skeleton of which was enough for a more than fine show. WB was blessed by twin boys under contract, Billy and Bobby Mauch, so no need for split-screening or camera tricks with one kid in dual roles. There also was insurance of Errol Flynn who although first billed does not enter the fray till a second half which surely saw ’37 grousing like would issue from me 2026 watching, though absorbed enough in action to forget Flynn was in wings. Mark Twain was given possessory credit over the title, plus his image briefly in case we forgot that face, bringing pedigree to the enterprise even as WB took customary liberties with property they’d bought.

Now to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, rendered first with talk in 1931(a silent done in 1921). Bernard DeVoto offered excerpts from the book in the Viking Portable edition of Mark Twain which he edited, DeVoto of opinion that Connecticut Yankee was “the most tragically marred of Mark’s books.” He went on to impugn the presumed classic of American literature by first conceding “it might have been a masterpiece … but nothing is sustained … in short the book is at war with itself.” This could be a film reviewer confronting the 1931 or 1949 versions. To defend Mark Twain, I’d point out as DeVoto did not that it was A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court where the author introduced, I’d aver for a first time, the story slant others of fantasy and sci-fi bent would play to a hilt, that being time travel as plot accelerant (what Twain referred to as “the transposition of epochs --- and bodies”). Here was brilliance enough to excuse the rest. Movies muffing a job of adaptation was their fail, not Mark Twain’s. His gag of an eclipse saving the hero from public burning is one any writer would long to dream up. Whole idea of an 1879 dweller thrust back to the sixth century and King Arthur’s time was based on Twain’s meeting a castle tour guide during a trip to England who claimed he had lived through Arthurian time, Mark figuring, what if he did? From such encounter did Yankee spring. Hollywood updated via Will Rogers as a 1931 radio repairman and occasional broadcaster, then for ‘49 Bing Crosby a blacksmith in 1912. Rogers treatment allows for humor of the known satirist’s sort, nowhere near raw treatment Mark Twain applied. It’s been suggested that Rogers was an update on Twain in his writings and general attitude, but short reading of Mark Twain will disabuse most of that. Both were charged by circumstance of a popular image to pull in horns to some extent, Rogers more than Twain, latter whom could doff kid gloves more readily when truculent mood called for it.

To The Prince and the Pauper again, novel which was compact and lent itself to action, intrigue, and pageant, all which were visually compelling like the Connecticut Yankee’s eclipse as rescue from execution. Warners’ Prince/Pauper aimed their treatment toward real-life Brit coronation seemingly timed to pump 1937’s release, event-inspired newsreels playing in tandem with the feature for many dates. WB treatment skewed heavy to youth per Mauch twins presence, plus there wouldn’t be observations from the book such as church premises being host to scaffolds in non-stop use. Errol Flynn was star assurance against too literary an association, though kept in mind should be Twain’s novel published but fifty-six years before (1881) the film was released. Pedigree was the more pronounced by 1962 and a Disney version produced in England, to be released theatrically there plus Euro markets, premiering on US television screens as three-parts on Sunday night’s Wonderful World of Color, broadcast dates March 11,18, and 25, 1962. A dullish telling of the Twain story said observers, host Walt Disney explaining harshness of the era it depicts, though standard/practices for TV at the time made spoon bread of what viewers saw. Guy Williams of Zorro habit assumed Flynn’s part, while Sean Scully took the dual title roles. Disney inaugural season for NBC saw money spent on larger scale than had been case at ABC, The Prince and the Pauper looking like a feature despite its low-budget, Disney as host making the case for Mark Twain as Number One favorite author from his childhood (“I read every one of his books”). Exposure on such wide seen forum as The Wonderful World of Color amounted to best exposure for the author but fifty years passed, The Prince and the Pauper appearing also in a comic book and children’s hardbound edition circa 1962. Considering influence Disney had on consumer choices during this his strongest period in both TV and film, we can assume The Prince and the Pauper got its best-ever boost to a contemporary marketplace.

Advantage with Connecticut Yankee was you could plug current personalities to Twain’s title character and get satisfactory result, or better where handled right. Will Rogers thrived with it, as though Mark Twain in 1881 saw his successor humorist coming. This might also have applied to Bing Crosby in 1949. Beauty in whatever Twain wrote was flexible to what a current public was judged to need, never mind close adhere to text. Crosby was a good actor and a great singer subject to same hot/cold winds as any star. A Going My Way happened once, while Blue Skies and others like it happened a rest of times. Weaker vehicles by 1949 outnumbered memorable ones. Bing’s best from this period might be hear-but-not-see Ichabod and Mr. Toad, voice only putting him in fuller command than cameras would permit. Swathes of Washington Irving got in his Ichabod Crane narration as overseen by Crosby, result like one of his expertly pre-recorded radio programs, these a summit of tech perfection. As the Connecticut Yankee, he falls prey to onus that is team effort, a nice opening to foretell not just comedy, some music, perhaps bittersweet romance (Bing joins a castle tour and casually announces he “was there” when sixth century events took place, a variant on Mark Twain tour experience that gave him Yankee’s inspiration). Being Paramount supervised, plus (over) produced, Connecticut Yankee obliges Crosby charisma to drag what shading he could manage across a finish line. Result was a film no better regarded then than now, points of interest yes, enough to wish Mark Twain’s property might be remade to at last emphasize a notion compelling now as what the author devised in 1881.