Captains Courageous (film)

Infobox Film
name = Captains Courageous


image_size = 200px
caption = 1990 VHS version
director = Victor Fleming
writer = Rudyard Kipling (novel)
starring = Freddie Bartholomew
Spencer Tracy
Lionel Barrymore
Melvyn Douglas
Mickey Rooney
John Carradine
released = May 11, 1937
runtime = 115 min.
language = English
imdb_id = 0028691

"Captains Courageous" is a 1937 MGM film, based on the novel by Rudyard Kipling. The movie was produced by Louis D. Lighton and directed by Victor Fleming. Filmed in black-and-white, "Captains Courageous" was advertised by MGM as a coming-of-age classic with exciting action sequences.

Plot

The film follows the adventures of Harvey Cheyne Jr. (Freddie Bartholomew), the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, business tycoon (Melvyn Douglas). Harvey falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by an American fisherman of Portuguese descent, Manuel (Spencer Tracy), on the Grand Banks and taken aboard the fishing vessel Manuel works for. Harvey cannot persuade the captain to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. However, the captain of the vessel, the "We're Here", Disko Troop (Lionel Barrymore), offers him a low-paid job as part of the crew until they return to port months later. With no other choice, Harvey accepts. He is befriended by Captain Troop's son, Dan (Mickey Rooney), and begins to learn the ways of working at sea. Under the guidance of Manuel and his equally tough crew-mates, he thrives in the new rough life and learns that cheating, bragging, and whining- his M.O. up till now- don't go far in real life. Tragically, Harvey loses his surrogate father when Manuel is drowned in an accident as the boat heads for port. Eventually, the schooner returns to port and Harvey is reunited with his father, who had given him up for dead (not having any word since his son's disappearance from the radio-less "We're Here"). The father rushes to the fishing town (Gloucester, Massachusetts) and finds to his amazement that his bratty, self-centered child has become a mature, considerate young man. The father also learns that he has neglected his motherless son and learns the joy of being a good father.

Awards

Spencer Tracy won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in this film. The movie was also nominated for three other Academy Awards:
*Best Picture - Louis D. Lighton, producer
*Best Film Editing - Elmo Veron
*Best Writing, Screenplay - Marc Connelly, John Lee Mahin and Dale Van Every

A "New York Times" review said it "brings vividly to life every page of Kipling's novel". A VHS version of the 1937 film was released by MGM Home Video in 1990 followed by Warner Home Video's DVD of the film on January 31, 2006.