The King and the Duke are the main antagonists of the 1993 live-action film The Adventures of Huck Finn. They are a pair of con artists who travel from town to town operating various schemes.
Role in the Film[]
When they recognize Jim as a wanted murderer, they blackmail Huck and Jim into assisting with their scheme to pose as the English brothers of a recently deceased man named Peter Wilks. Welcomed by Peter’s unwitting daughters, Julia, Mary Jane, and Susan, the King and the Duke inherit Peter’s chest of gold coins, but greedily plot for a way to steal more of Wilks’s property.
Meanwhile, Huck sneaks away from the house and learns that Jim was arrested. At the prison, Huck promises to help free Jim in time to catch the next steamboat, but feels deceived when Jim finally admits to knowing about Pap’s death. Upon the boy’s return to the Wilks's home, the King falsely promises to take the daughters back to England, allowing the thieves to auction their belongings and steal the profits. Feeling bad for swindling the kind-hearted ladies, Huck hides the gold in Peter’s coffin before it is buried, and reveals the deception to Mary Jane. As Huck sets off to break Jim out of prison, the real Wilks brothers arrive from England, prompting each pair of men to argue their identity before the ignorant townspeople. To verify the Wilks’ claim that their brother had a tattoo, the now riotous mob exhumes Peter’s corpse and tar the King and the Duke.
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