A Connecticut Yankee is a 1931 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 adaptation of Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court...

. It was directed by David Butler to a script by William M. Conselman, Owen Davis

Owen Davis

Owen Gould Davis, Sr. was an American dramatist. He received the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1923 play Icebound, and penned hundreds of plays and scripts for radio and film. Before the First World War, he also wrote racy sketches of New York high jinks and low life for the Police Gazette...

, and Jack Moffitt. It was produced by Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

), who had earlier produced the 1921 silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 adaptation of the novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1921 film)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a 1921 American silent film adaptation of Mark Twain's 1889 novel of the same name. The film was produced by the Fox Film Corporation and directed by Emmet J. Flynn based on a screenplay by Bernard McConville...

. A Connecticut Yankee is the first sound film

Sound film

A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

 adaptation of Twain's novel.

The film stars Will Rogers

Will Rogers

William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....

 as Henry Morgan, an American accidental time travel

Time travel

Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...

er who finds himself in the time of King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

 (William Farnum

William Farnum

William Farnum was a major movie actor. One of three brothers, Farnum grew up in a family of actors. He made his acting debut at the age of ten in Richmond, Virginia in a production of Julius Caesar, with Edwin Booth playing the title character...

). Myrna Loy

Myrna Loy

Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...

 and Brandon Hurst

Brandon Hurst

Brandon Hurst was an English stage and film actor. He studied linguistics in his youth and began playing in theatre in 1880s. He was nearly fifty years old when he acted in his first film Via Wireless as Edward Pnickney in year 1915 and continued acting in the 129 other films until his death 1947...

 play the evil Morgan le Fay

Morgan le Fay

Morgan le Fay , alternatively known as Morgane, Morgaine, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful sorceress in the Arthurian legend. Early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a fay or magician...

 and Merlin

Merlin

Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...

, who must be overcome by Henry's modern technical knowledge, while Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...

 plays Alisande. Fox was likely inspired to produce A Connecticut Yankee based on the success of the 1921 silent film. The 1931 version was likewise successful, and was re-released in 1936. It is unrelated to the 1927 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 also titled A Connecticut Yankee.