Tom Sawyer (Silent)

Mischievous young Tom Sawyer lives with his stern Aunt Polly in St. Petersburg, Missouri. He loves getting into trouble with his friends Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper. Searching for adventure, the three boys run away to nearby Jackson Island and declare themselves pirates. Unable to find Tom, a grieving Aunt Polly has him declared dead. When the entire town shows up to remember him, Tom can't resist attending his own funeral.

Released only eight years after author Mark Twain's death, Tom Sawyer is the first film version of the classic novel. Shot in Hannibal, Missouri, it faithfully captures the 19th century American South described in Twain's book. It also stands as one of the few surviving films of Irish-born director William Desmond Taylor, who had prior experience bringing an American icon to life when he directed Davy Crockett the year before. Taylor would be found murdered in his apartment a short five years after Tom Sawyer's release, the culprit unknown to this day. Starring as Tom is Jack Pickford, the younger brother of silent screen star Mary Pickford. Though never as successful as his older sister, Pickford's "boy next door" image proved popular with silent era audiences in D.W. Griffith films like The Unwelcome Guest (1913) and Home, Sweet, Home (1914). He would also star as Pip in the first screen adaptation of another classic, Great Expectations (1917). His first wife, actress and Ziegfeld girl Olive Thomas, can be seen during the church sequence as a choir girl.

• silent