Magnificent Discovery - Tom Sawyer

[daneldorado]

You guys have all had "magnificent discoveries," haven't you? Like when you find a spanking scene you never knew existed, or when you discover that a particular actress you would love to see get spanked, actually DOES get spanked, in some movie you never heard of?

Well, I can top that. For over SIXTY (60!) years, I have been morose over something that happened to me in grammar school... and today, that gloom is gone from my mind!

Here's why. Back in 1938, Selznick Pictures launched its version of the 1876 Mark Twain best-seller, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Well, I was never inclined to view that film, but when I was in grammar school I was sent to an "aud call." (Remember those?) This is when the teachers told our class -- and other classes -- to march into the auditorium to sit and watch a movie. By then, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer had been released in 16mm prints, so we were forced to sit and watch it.

Now, I know that there may be some fans of Tom Sawyer among us, but the one scene in that movie that fries my gullet is the scene in the school Tom is attending, and the young Becky Thatcher, in whom Tom is "interested," scrawls an unflattering cartoon of their schoolteacher Mr. Dobbins. The cartoon gets circulated around the room, and soon Mr. Dobbins himself -- I believe he was played by Olin Howland in the film -- gets ahold of it.

Well! Now Mr. Dobbins is massively indignant, and determines to teach the creator of that toon a good lesson!

"WHO drew this picture?" he demands of the class.

All the kids draw back, and no one says anything. But Becky Thatcher, the culprit, cowers in her seat and Mr. Dobbins (correctly) guesses that she is the miscreant.

"Come to the front of the room, young lady," demands the indignant teacher.

At this point, everyone in the room knows that the culprit is going to receive a good spanking, or rather a caning, in front of the other students. What a humiliating experience that will be!

Becky slowly starts to leave her desk and come forward. But just then, Tom Sawyer decides to be a hero, and he jumps up and says:

"It wasn't her, Mr. Dobbins! It was me! I drew that picture!"

Now things are different. It will be Tom, not Becky, who gets the public spanking and humiliation. To make matters worse, Mr. Dobbins selects a cane with an even thicker circumference, to give the swats a harder sting.

So, Tom takes the punishment that rightfully belongs to Becky. I don't remember what year they showed us that film, or how old I was; but it was in grammar school, so I may have been 6 or 7. And all these years I have deeply RESENTED that Selznick Pictures, or Mark Twain, or anybody else, thought it was okey-dokey for a boy to be spanked instead of a deserving girl. That will give you some idea how many years I have had this fetish in my head.

Well. Last night, I was doing some research for a friend on the "Spanking Scouts" website run by Chross, and I located my copy of an original still from the 1941 movie Nice Girl? (1941), showing a scene where father figure Robert Benchley is spanking his naughty teenage daughter, played by Ann Gillis. It's a fun scene, she is over his knee, and all the swats are clearly shown on the screen. I scanned the pic, posted it, and that was that. Or so I thought.

Not so fast, my fine-feathered fetishist! In researching the pic, I glanced at Ann Gillis' filmography. She had a long career. Born in the 1920s, she made her final appearance in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). But the real nugget came when I researched her 1938 films: For little Ann appeared in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as...

You guessed it! She was little Becky Thatcher!

So, Ann/Becky did get her well-deserved spanking after all, and I could. Not. Be. Happier!

Maybe you are of the PC persuasion, and think I am an unspeakably sexist jerk. And I well may be just that. But... if you are PC, then WHAT are you doing on this forum?

Cheers,
Dan

[Tanner]

Have never seen the Tom Sawyer movie. For those who have never read the book in the book what happened was that the schoolmaster wanted to be a doctor and would study an anatomy text sometimes when students were working.
One day Becky snooped in his desk, found the book and saw a nude picture(it was a medical text after all),Tom came up and startles her, she tears the page, and panics fearing that she will be whipped for it.
After that events unfold pretty much as you have described in the movie.

[web-ed]

[Note: I moved this topic over here from "CSR Feedback".]

I wouldn't worry too much about the PC crowd, Dan - with our persistent advocacy of M/F spanking, I think we chased them away from this forum a long time ago!

What a fantastic story - to think it took over 60 years for this discovery to come to light! I never saw the 1938 film version of Tom Sawyer myself, but I do remember the scene from Twain's novel exactly the way Tanner described it. I read it when I was a little older than you - probably 9 or 10 - and of course that scene bothered me too. I remember being simultaneously eager to see Becky get caned, sympathetic to her plight, and upset by Tom getting it instead. This was in fact exactly the way I felt about corporal punishment at school - I wanted to see a girl get it, but at the same time I would have felt sorry for her. This of course is a recipe for conflict and unhappiness, but never mind that now.

It is certainly interesting that the spanking desire was so well-developed in you at such an early age. The strength of your repulsion at the thought of X/M spanking is telling also - it's no wonder, then, that you feel so strongly about it today. Most of us spankos became what we are at a very early age, but not all boys are so unambiguous in their feelings (see, e.g., Martin's story of his early experiences with corporal punishment in school in the Articles Section).

Anyway, all of us share in your pleasure in this discovery and happiness in knowing that justice was done - even if it did take sixty years to find out about it!

[jimc]

Hi dan, i thought she looked familar,but i could not place her. I have always had an aversion to the tom sawyer movies as all of them do have the spankings to tom and i am a pure m/f or f/f fan and i was so looking forward to becky getting a spanking. Although to be honest the canings while historically accurate still lack the appeal of an otk image. Seeing NICE GIRL did make me think of another movie DEAR BRAT with Mona Freeman and there was a still of it floating around and she was in another movie that did have her otk that was in the series ( i think that there were 3 movies) as well. over at Spanking Scouts there was a discussion about a tv series called TALES OF WELLS FARGO with Dale Robertson and Diane Jurgens or Whitney Blake and while i did see it i do have to say that my age at the time(5 or 6) did not bode well for remembering who was in it. My first movie that i remember was PUBLIC DEB # 1 with Brenda Marshall and George Raft and thought it was the most magnifient discoverery of my life. Have a great day.
JIm