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The Adventures of Mark Twain (released in the United Kingdom as Comet Quest) is a 1985 American stop motion claymation fantasy film directed by Will Vinton and starring James Whitmore. It received a limited theatrical release in May 1985. It was released on DVD in January 2006,[5] and again as a collector's edition in 2012 on DVD and Blu-ray.

The Adventures of Mark Twain
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Will Vinton
Written by	Susan Shadburne[1]
Based on	The works of Mark Twain
Produced by	Will Vinton
Starring	James Whitmore
Edited by	Kelley Baker Michael Gall Will Vinton
Music by	Billy Scream
Production companies	Will Vinton Productions Harbour Town Films
Distributed by	Clubhouse Pictures
Release date	March 1, 1985 (1985-03-01)[2]
Running time	86 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.5 million[3]
Box office	$849,915[4]

The film features a series of vignettes extracted from several of Mark Twain's works, built around a plot that features Twain's attempts to keep his "appointment" with Halley's Comet. Twain and three children, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher, travel on an airship between various adventures.[6]

Plot

Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer sneak aboard an airship piloted by Mark Twain in an attempt to become famous aeronauts. After having a bout of one-upmanship, Becky Thatcher follows them to call their bluff. The balloon takes off and the stowaways are soon discovered but are surprised to learn Mark Twain already knows their names. Upon seeing the frog the boys had caught outside of town, Twain relates his first popular short story: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

They find that he intends to pilot the airship to meet Halley's Comet, and are worried this goal will end in all their deaths. The boys stumble across the Index-o-Vator, a strange elevator that can take them to any part of the vessel, or into any of Twain’s writing, and meet up with Twain and Becky. She’s intrigued by a coin-operated automaton of Adam and Eve, and Twain takes the chance to begin their tale, based on Eve's Diary and Extracts From Adam's Diary. The story comes to a halt when just as storm clouds fill the Garden of Eden, a real storm surrounds the airship. Twain quickly coaches the kids on how to pilot to ship, but they fail to avoid smashing into a mountain and losing a chunk of the hull.

Dejected, the trio head back to the Index-o-Vator, where the door opens to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck and Becky are excited at the opportunity to get home, but Tom only cares about avoiding Aunt Betty’s chores and changes the floor before the others can protest. Out of the open void emerges Mark Twain, now dressed in a black suit instead of his usual white one, who changes the floor and encourages the kids to go into a scene from The Chronicles of Young Satan.

Tom fills Huck and Becky in on his plan, and the three conspire to sabotage the suicidal voyage and take control of the ship. They lay low as Twain teaches them how to fly the vessel, and Tom senses an opportunity in the central power panel. They follow Twain into his office to tie him up when he falls asleep, but much to their surprise the writer greets them again on the deck. The kids ask if there’s another life waiting for them after they collide with the comet, and Twain relates the story of Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.

With their plan in place, the kids wait anxiously as Twain continues the story of Adam and Eve, the designs of the old couple looking much like Mark Twain and his wife, Olivia, with Twain saying “wherever she was, there was Eden.” He laments on her death and wishes to see her again when he meets the comet. The children discover the truth behind Twain's journey: he believes he is destined to die with the return of the comet and this journey is his way of accepting his fate, leaving the kids behind unharmed. It’s too late however, and Tom’s contraption goes off, destroying the main power and trapping them below decks. Huck’s frog saves the day, leaping from the porthole to land on the back-up power button.

The crew head off, the kids now piloting the ship expertly with Twain in command. They enter the comet, and finally come face to face with the strange figure who has been haunting the ship: Mark Twain’s double. Twain explains that the double is his darker side, who is as much an important part of him as the lighthearted humorist they're familiar with. The two give the kids several pieces of advice, all real Mark Twain quotes, and muse on whether or not there’s another life waiting for them. They merge and disappear into dust. Twain’s face appears in the comet’s clouds, and when asked where he's going answers "back to Eden".

The airship is blown out of the comet by Twain, and the kids decide to write up their journey in a book called, "The Adventures of Mark Twain by Huck Finn".

Cast

• James Whitmore as Mark Twain
• Michele Mariana as Becky Thatcher
• Gary Krug as Huck Finn
• Chris Ritchie as Tom Sawyer
• John Morrison as Adam
• Carol Edelman as Eve
• Dallas McKennon as Jim Smiley and Newspaper Boy
• Herb Smith as The Stranger
• Marley Stone as Aunt Polly
• Michele Mariana & Wilbur Vincent as The Mysterious Stranger
• Wally Newman as Captain Stormfield
• Tim Conner as Three-Headed Alien
• Todd Tolces as Saint Peter
• Billy Scream as The Indexivator
• Will Vinton as Dan'l Webster
• Billy Victor as God
• Compton Downs as Injun Joe
• Gary Thompson as Baby Cain

Production

The concept was inspired by a famous quote by the author:

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"[7]

Twain died on April 21, 1910, one day after Halley's Comet reached perihelion in 1910.[8]

This animated film, which tested well with teens and college students before it was labeled with a G rating which hurt their box office chances, was shot in Portland, Oregon[9] and when he was asked about the rumors of this film being made by a 17-person crew,[3] Vinton stated:

Well it’s all true, though that’s probably exaggerating a bit. Seventeen or so represents the full-time staff and then freelance people came and went, plus you have musical talent and writing talent and things that go beyond that number. We shot the film in a converted house that had a barbershop in front of it, so we called it the Barbershop Studio. The bedrooms and things were editing rooms and offices. The high-ceiling basement was conveniently connected to a four thousand square foot studio that we built in the back, and that basement was where the animators and sculptors worked on the characters. So, yes, we spent a lot of time in the basement![3]

Reception and legacy

On Rotten Tomatoes it has a score of 80% based on reviews from five critics, with an average rating of 8/10.[10] On Common Sense Media it has 3/5 stars.[11]

Animation critic Charles Solomon listed it as one of the best animated films of the 1980s a year after the film's release.[12]

See also

• Mark Twain in popular culture
• List of stop-motion films
• List of animated feature films

References

External links

• The Adventures of Mark Twain at IMDb
• The Adventures of Mark Twain at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Adventures of Mark Twain at AllMovie

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