Day #73 - Captains Courageous

IMDB Link

Awww, this movie was really cute :) It took me awhile to get into it - I was afraid it wouldn't hold my interest but it eventually did - about 45 minutes in. I was really looking forward to seeing this since my Mother-in-Law recommended it as a great Spencer Tracy movie - and as this challenged has led me to become a great fan of his, I knew I was in for a treat. I didn't expect this kind of a role though! Tracy played a Portugese fisherman who spoke in broken English, which, at first, was really annoying - but I got used to it after a bit and it wasn't so bad. I guess at first I didn't understand he was Portugese and so I though he just sounded uneducated.

Captains Courageous centers around a young boy named Harvey - Harvey's father is very wealthy and his lack of attention to his son has led Harvey to become spoiled and entitled. He bribes kids at school to get what he wants and has few friends to show for it. One day he admits to a teacher that he had tried to bribe him to make his history exams easier and got kicked out. When his Father hears the news, he is shocked, mostly because he really doesn't know his son at all. He decides to take Harvey with him on a ship to Europe - when Harvey accidentally falls overboard, he is picked up by the fisherman Manuel (Tracy). Harvey spends the next several weeks with Manuel and the other men on the fishing boat - Manuel takes an interest in him, teaching him how to fish and telling him stories of his own Father who had died at sea. Harvey sees how little his own father had taught him and really latches on to Manuel, learning many valuable lessons before returning back to the mainland - I won't ruin anything else from the ending :)

I just really loved the relationship between Manuel and Harvey - Manuel could appreciate the simple things in life and found very little value in money and material things - quite the opposite of how Harvey had been brought up. In one of the scenes in the movie, Manuel challenges another one of he fisherman to a contest to see who can catch the most fish. When Manuel finds out that Harvey ruined the other guys line so that he and Manuel could win, Manuel forfeits the challenge and treats Harvey to silence. I really liked this bit of plot because Harvey was learning things about integrity and honesty when he had been so oblivious before. I enjoyed Freddie Bartholomew as Harvey - he was prett insufferable as the snotty kid at school but once he got on the fishing boats he was much more tolerable :)

Spencer Tracy won a Best Oscar for his role as Manuel. The movie was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Editing in 1937.

Ohmygosh, can I please take a second to talk about Lionel Barrymore? He played the Captain of the ship and I just saw him a couple of weeks ago in You Can't Take it With You. He is so hilarious - Chris and I were constantly laughing at him because he has this way of yelling his lines where I have NO idea what he's saying! It just all runs together! I like him a lot :)