by Ted Davis

Directed by: Norman Taurog

Synopsis: Best friends Huckleberry Finn (Junior Durkin) and Tom Sawyer (Jackie Coogan) run away from their respective homes, joined by loyal and courtly slave Jim (Clarence Muse), for an adventure down the Mississippi River and become entangled with bumbling conmen The King (Oscar Apfel) and the Duke of Bridgewater (Eugene Pallette), who use the two runaways in a dastardly scheme to fleece kindly Mary Jane (Charlotte Henry) and her sister Ella (Dora Short) of their considerable fortune. Not the best movie version of the classic Mark Twain novel, but it’s certainly not the worst.

Kitty Cameos: Huck and Tom use cat meows as their secret signal to each other. At one point in the movie, when Jim attempts to pinpoint Huck’s whereabouts by conjuring on a supposedly mystic hair-ball taken from the stomach of an ox, Tom looks up excitedly at the sound of a meow, and is disappointed when he realizes that the originator is not Huck, but a curious tuxedo cat on a nearby picket fence.

Becky Thatcher (Mitzi Green) interrupts Tom and Jim as they search for Huck, walking apace with Tom until he demands angrily that she leave him alone. Becky carries a small orange kitten during the sequence, which emits a sweet little mew at the end of the scene.

Final Mewsings: Cats resent it when humans appropriate and mangle their secret language.

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