The Old Man and the Sea

Arguably the best novella ever written gets both a reading from Spencer Tracy and a dramatization - neither of which quite mesh with each other. There is a great deal of unnecessary narration, probably owing to the fact that no one thought Hemingway's words could be improved upon. I wish this movie had been made ten years later, when the sparse style of the prose could have been matched by the sparseness of the period.

All that aside, it's a beautiful movie and Tracy is excellent. You wouldn't think that an old-hand white guy actor would be able to carry off being a old-hand white guy actor doing an old Cuban man without looking silly. But he does, without trying to do anything besides portraying an aging fisherman. This is the key to his performance - he looks so comfortable in the role that you absolutely believe him as that fisherman. One of his greatest roles.

Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" is a classic literary work but it isn't well suited to screen adaptation. This film has some of the necessary ingredients for success but comes up short in several respects.

Spencer Tracy turns in a fine performance as the titular 'old man', one which was rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Felipe Pazos (as the boy), on the other hand, is a dreadful actor and almost drags Tracy's performance down in the scenes that they share. Tracy does double duty as the omniscient narrator as well, though I don't think that it made much sense to delegate that task to the actor playing the main character of the film.

John Sturges seems to have had to cobble together footage from various shoots and locations, resulting in a somewhat haphazard look. Budgetary concerns were likely a part of the problem along with limitations in technology.

Dimitri Tiomkin's score won an Oscar but I didn't think it was that exceptional. Certainly not nearly as memorable as the scores that Elmer Bernstein provided for Sturges's "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape".

While some will undoubtedly find the story boring I think that it is easily the best part of this picture. Behind the simple story of a man and his marlin there are layers upon layers of deeper meaning. I could have done without some of the narration, though, particularly when the same thing could have been conveyed with visuals.

In the end, I give the content of the film high points though the film's technical aspects are riddled with inadequacies. It's worth watching but you should be prepared for some decidedly rough edges.

An American drama; A story about an old Cuban fisherman who has not caught anything in 84 days. This is a film adaptation of Hemingway's Pulitzer-winning novella. The best that can be said about it is Spencer Tracy's Academy Award-nominated performance, its winning score, and the sumptuous colour photography also recognised that year by the Academy. It is a faithful adaptation in terms of narrative. Tracy embodies the old man wonderfully, particularly in capturing the modesty and kindliness of Santiago, the Cuban apprentice boy's hero. The film's shortcomings can be said to be the production values, i.e., the scenes at sea. The producers also failed to effect Santiago's wrestling with the fish, scenes that were key to the source material as well; the brilliant stock footage of big fish only goes so far to assuage the disappointment in these sequences. All in all, viewers will admire Tracy for his naturalism on screen, something that comes easy to very few film actors.

I read the book again before viewing the movie on video. The book is very short and the movie follows the narration very closely. Some of the narration is dropped, however, in the version I viewed. The fisherman is a lot like many of us as we grow older and it is very heartwarming to see how he faces his tribulations with such a wise philosophy. He does not harbor ill will toward anyone or anything, including the great fish, but accepts life and makes no judgements.

Spencer Tracy provides an excellent portrayal, as usual, of the main character. The boy acted very well and I wondered what his future had in store for him. I wondered if He would be effected by the Cuban Revolution a few years later. I told my wife that it would be interesting if he became a revolutionary if the story continued. It was very interesting to find that in real life, according to the Movie data base biography, his father was an economist and a principal participant in the Cuban Revolution a few years later.

A book well written and a film adaption that presents the story as I imagined it while reading the book.

Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" is a fine story, but it gives every indication of being quite a challenge to any film-maker hoping to adapt it to the screen. This is a good effort, with a well-conceived approach to getting across the story and the main ideas. Yet it required above all the right leading actor, and Spencer Tracy comes through with a poignant performance that pulls everything else together.

Tracy is perfectly cast as the old fisherman. His voice is ideal, not only for the character but also for reading the lengthy voice-over narrations from Hemingway's text. The narration is used to communicate some of the story's key themes, and without just the right reader it probably would not have worked at all. Tracy also seems to identify with the character closely, since his mannerisms and body language almost always seem just right.

The action parts of the story rely heavily on stock footage, and sometimes on rather obvious models, but the action is not nearly as important as are the old man's character and his thoughts. Although there are some exciting moments in his battle with nature, it is what these bring out in him, not the events themselves, that are important.

What works especially well here are the old man's dreams and thoughts of the past. They are all-important in defining the character, and this adaptation manages them better than you could hope for, with the simplest of means. Once again, Tracy's narration matches the content perfectly.

The heart of the story is an honest but compassionate look at a man almost thoroughly ignored by the world, seemingly with little purpose to his life. His importance comes not from any outstanding achievement or valuable talent, but simply because he is a human being, with his own hopes, memories, and worries that are unique to him. This movie version succeeds well in rendering a touching picture of its main character.