Captains Courageous **** (1937, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Mickey Rooney, Melvyn Douglas) – Classic Movie Review 5019

Director Victor Fleming’s 1937 MGM movie of the novel by Rudyard Kipling is a bit creaky, dated and faded now, but it is still very enjoyable and entertaining thanks to the well-told, rattlingly good yarn, to the luminous stars Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Mickey Rooney and Melvyn Douglas and to Fleming’s robust direction

Bartholomew plays pompous little toff kid, spoiled brat Harvey Cheyne Jr, who is plucked from the sea by Portuguese fisherman Manuel (Tracy), who teaches him humility, the value of honest toil and a love of the deep aboard crusty old sea-dog Disko (Barrymore)’s ship.

The MGM studio splashed out for a first-rate production for their version of Rudyard Kipling’s yarn, and Tracy won the 1938 Best Actor Oscar for his most un-Tracy-like performance, complete with Portuguese accent and a spot of singing.

Also in the rousing cast are Charley Grapewin, Christian Rub, Leo G Carroll, John Carradine, Oscar O’Shea, Jack La Rue, Walter Kingsford, Donald Briggs, Sam McDaniel, Billy Burrud, Wally Albright, Wade Botelier, Don Brodie, Tommy Bupp, Charles Coleman, Jimmy Conlin, Billy Gilbert, Lloyd Ingraham, Jack Kennedy, Katherine Kenworthy, Murray Kinnell, Edward Peil Sr, Jack Sterling, Frank Sully, Charles Trowbridge and Bobby Watson.

It runs 116 minutes, is written by John Lee Mahin, Marc Connelly and Dale Van Every, is hot in black and white by Harold Rosson, is produced by Louis D Lighton, is scored by Franz Waxman and Clifford Vaughan and is designed by Cedric Gibbons.

Tracy’s win was the only Oscar but there were three other Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Film Editing (Elmo Veron). Tracy won the Best Actor Oscar again the following year for Boys Town (1938), his only other Oscar.

It was remade for TV in 1977 with Johnny Doran and again in 1996 with Robert Urich and Kenny Vadas.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5019

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