Junior Durkin Movies

This follow-up to RKO Radio's near-perfect adaptation of Little Women was produced by small but enterprising Mascot Pictures (the forerunner to Republic). Erin O'Brien-Moore and Ralph Morgan star as Jo March and Professor Bhaer, the characters played by Katharine Hepburn and Paul Lukas in Little Women. Now married, Jo and the Professor decide to establish a school for wayward boys, hoping to guide the kids towards the proper paths in life. The supporting cast includes what "B"-film historian Don Miller described as "just about every child player in Hollywood" ranging from cherubic Dickie Moore as Demi to tough-guy Frankie Darro as Dan (future director Richard Quine can also be spotted amongst the boys). Louisa May Alcott devotees have always felt that Little Men is inferior to Little Women; the same, alas, can be said about the two novels' respective film versions, though Mascot's Little Men comes to life whenever satanic-visaged Gustaf Von Seyfertitz, cast as a vindictive reformatory supervisor, oils his way onto the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this fluffy romance, a young woman fights against the narrow-minded residents of her small town. The trouble begins when a young woman flees her boarding school to stay with her retired aunt, a former actress, who try as she might, has never been welcomed into the snobbish community in which she resides. The young woman too, is shunned and ends up being victimized in witchcraft trial and ducked into a pool of water. A handsome newspaper editor arrives to check out the story, and he and the girl fall in love. In the end, she moves to New York; when he gets a good job at a New York paper, he moves there too, and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Junior Durkin who burst upon the movie scene as Huck Finn in 1930's Tom Sawyer, is the teenage star of Man Hunt. Durkin plays an aspiring detective (courtesy of a correspondence school) who decides to take on the case of a robbery/murder. He uncovers a cache of stolen diamonds, and is nearly rubbed out by a mysterious baldheaded assailant. Junior's leading lady is Charlotte Henry, who'd previously costarred with the boy in Huckleberry Finn (31) and would have her bid for stardom later in 1933 with Alice in Wonderland. Man Hunt was an independent production (obviously so, given the tattiness of the sets and camerawork), distributed to the Saturday-matinee market by RKO. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn stars Junior Durkin in the title role, Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer, Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher and Clarence Muse as Jim the slave. The film hopscotches around the book, ignoring such highlights as the Grangeford-Shepherdson feud and devoting too much time to such minor incidents as Huck and Tom's "orchestrated" rescue of Jim. The basic storyline begins when Huck's no-good Pap (Warner Richmond) kidnaps the boy from his guardian, the Widow Douglas. Huck stages his own "death" and escapes down the Mississippi on a raft, in the company of Tom Sawyer and escaped slave Jim. The threesome link up with two confidence men, the King (Oscar Apfel) and the Duke (Eugene Pallette). The unscrupulous pair plan fleece the grieving family of a recently deceased man of wealth, but Huck falls in love with one of the victims of the scam (Charlotte Henry) and thwarts the villains. Huckleberry Finn was Paramount's followup to 1930's Tom Sawyer, with many of the principal actors repeating their roles. This 1931 version of Huckleberry is easy to take, but somewhat threadbare when compared to later remakes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Paramount star Richard Arlen heads a strong cast in this early talkie western about a sheepherder falsely accused of killing an Indian. Luckily for the hero, two little children (Mitzi Green and Junior Durkin) witnessed the murder and can point the sheriff in the direction of the true culprit. The film was unusual in that Mexican characters were allowed to speak Spanish. Reviewers at the time, however, didn't buy it and pointed out that leading lady Rosita Moreno quite obviously "had a good knowledge of English." Both Mitzi Green and Junior Durkin were admired child stars at the time; the latter, who portrayed Huck Finn in both Tom Sawyer (1930) and Huckleberry Finn (1931), sadly lost his life at the age of 19, the victim of a car accident near San Diego, California that also claimed the lives of producer-director Robert J. Horner and the father of child star Jackie Coogan. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide