Those who praise this film have not read the book. The book is a masterpiece. It is not accepted in the USA to the extent that it deserves. This is because it's author is English. If Jack Lontdon had written it,it would be the great American novel. So the film is nothing like the book in the detail. Manuel is a minor figure in the book. Spencer Tracey is hopeless in the part. But he would have been right for the Captain. The only good part is where they have filmed an actual Bluenose schooner. Now that part really is dramatic. The most famous part of the book is the description of the race by private train across continental America. In the movie it is brusquely treated. Summary: The book is not really suitable to be made as a movie. The bulk of the book relates to day to day interaction between the crew and other crews. This is why it was "sparked up"in the film. Don't bother seeing it but read the book.

You'd think with an all-star cast and an interesting premise, Captains Courageous would be a good movie. Freddie Bartholomew, the darling of that time, plays a snotty little kid who learns valuable lessons in maturity when he mingles among the lower classes. His father, Melvyn Douglas is determined to make a man out of him, so he takes him out of boarding school and on a father-son sailing expedition. Freddie falls overboard and gets rescued by another ship, captained by Lionel Barrymore. Spencer Tracy is the lead fisherman on the boat, and Mickey Rooney is Lionel's worldly son. How could this movie be so bad? Four words: Spencer Tracy's Portuguese accent. I don't know who cast him in such a ridiculous role, and I don't know who didn't replace him after watching the rehearsals or the dailies, but he's terrible. He won an Oscar for saying "feeshes" and singing badly along with a ukulele. 1937 was a year full of Oscar mistakes, and the Best Actor award was one of them. If you really love Spencer Tracy, you'll want to watch this movie. I don't, so I don't ever want to watch this again.

A wonderful film I only discovered about ten years ago. A low key beginning, hardly anything to attract the viewer to sympathize with the predicament that befalls young Harvey. With a wonderful cast, fairly average story but told and beautifully understated brings a wonderful balance and heart-tugging restoration for young Harvey, plucked from the sea by Spencer Tracy, a Portuguese fisherman. Having to become a fisherman for two months, young Harvey finds out what he has not known in life. He begins the story as a spoilt young irritating brat but ends it restored to life and his father. A message for us all, begun and ending in eternity. Poignant, sad and enriching. Great cinema.

A movie like this could only have been made in the early days of cinema. Before the days when fancy camera angles, careful editing, and computer-effects combine to make any pretty-boy a big star, movies had to rely on genuine talent on the part of child actors. Nowhere is this more evident than with Freddie Bartholomew. The character he plays is a spoiled rich-kid, used to getting his own way and obnoxious with everyone he meets. Yet he plays the role in such a way that we can sympathize with him, rather than detest him. We understand the character, but we do not hate him. Watch any similar movie made today, and the child actors will whine and sneer and have smart-mouthed replies to everything. In this movie, however, the character is not taken to that extreme, and when he makes his transition in the film we are able to love him, and are able to forget how horrid he was before. The boy can truly act. When he cries for his loved ones, we cry with him. When he is happy, we are able to smile. And when he does something foolish, we do not get the urge to punch him in the face. The character is attractive by the end of the film, and that is a quality which few (if any) child actors possess today. If you want to see a touching movie with superb acting and genuine emotion, this is the one.

I dare anyone to sit through this film with dry eyes! Especially people of the male persuasion. There is simply no way it can be done. Young teen Freddie Bartholomew is a snotty, spoilt brat, and on a cruise with his dad he falls overboard and is rescued by Portuguese fisherman Spencer Tracy who takes him to Captain Lionel Barrymore's commercial fishing ship. They can't afford to go give up their fishing to take the arrogant kid back to land, and so Freddie is forced to spend three months with the crew, gradually mellowing into a nice boy and evolving into a rugged, no-nonsense kid who dotes on Tracy's rough and ready Manuel. Victor Fleming was never the most subtle of directors, and this adaptation of Kipling's story does not thrive on its wealth of detail or the ambiguity of emotion, but its sweep is epic and its heart so real that you feel you have been on a roller-coaster-ride. I loved the reels of the men fishing and preparing the fish, it had a nice documentary feel to it, akin to the silent 'Down to the Sea in Ships' that 'Captains Courageous' resembles a lot at times. The cinematography is beautiful, the mist and fog captured with finesse. But this film is all about acting. Spencer Tracy got an Oscar for his acting as Manuel, cast against type. And although his performance verges on the sentimental, it never actually tips over. But the film belongs to Freddie Bartholomew who surely must have been tempted to overboard with emotion, but, miraculously, never does. This boy was an astute and intuitive actor, and he never sets a foot wrong. Mickey Rooney shines in an itsy bitsy part as the captain's son. He never tries to steal any scenes from Bartholomew (as one suspects he might, and could!), but concentrates on a brisk, matter-of-fact performance of this young pro of the sea, every movement he makes seems exactly right, again almost documentary-like. Watch this film if you get the chance. They don't come much better, and yes, it will make you bawl and sob. Be warned.

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