Children today would be horrified
Some time back, some channel showed two versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer back to back. One was the 1938 David O. Selznick production starring Tommy Kelly. The other was Tom and Huck starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
The old version was better, of course. In technicolor. Tommy Kelly did his own stunts.
In the 1938 version, they were constantly beating the crap out of him. The teacher brutally canes him. Aunt Polly whacks him with a board, thumps him in the head. In one scene he eats standing up after an especially brutal beating.
When you watched that movie, you sat there thinking, "For God's sake! Why don't they stop hitting that poor kid!"
On the other hand, you watch the Jonathan Taylor Thomas version and you sit there thinking, "For God's sake! Why doesn't somebody slap that kid!"
In that version, Jonathan Taylor Thomas smirks constantly as he avoids all punishment. They threaten him. Aunt Polly is long suffering. The teacher is easily manipulated.
I don't know how children watching movies today would react to seeing the child rearing practices of the past. I think it would help them understand the character and why he kept "acting out".
Tommy Kelly, Jonathan Taylor Thomas
The star of the old Tom Sawyer went on to do a few other movies, but his career never took off. Poor kid. It's not known where he is now, if he's alive or dead.
I don't know what Jonathan Taylor Thomas is up to. He was huge in his day and did a few movies. I remember reading a quote from him that he wanted to do grittier roles because that's what you got respect for. He was miscast in a movie called Speedway Junkie, produced, I believe, by Gus Van Sant. Van Sant has made other movies about teen boy prostitutes which would be fine but it's not the plight of these poor kids he seems interested in.
I couldn't make it through Speedway Junkie. Thomas played sort of the leader of the teenage boy prostitutes. But he was---I don't know---too cute for the role.
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