Classic films
Jun. 25th, 2006 08:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoLast night we watched the 1938 film Captains Courageous with Lionel Barrymore, Spencer Tracy (young!), Mickey Rooney and other names that later became famous. I had to grin at Gary's reaction when it started and the MGM lion gave his imitation of a hippo with stomach cramps in black and white. "It's black and white?" he asked. Well, yes. In 1938 color films were still horribly expensive to make and there weren't a lot of them.
We got it because someone told Gary it had an "infamous scene with a hurdy gurdy". Actually it has several scenes with the hurdy gurdy, though I'm not sure what makes them infamous. If you expect it to follow the plot of Rudyard Kipling's novel very closely, you'll be disappointed. But it stands well on its own as a derivative work. Tracy handed in a performance that earned him an academy award and I agree with that decision. He even sings creditably, not like some operatic professional bursting into song on deck, but like a fisherman who loves music and is going to sing whether he sounds great or not.
It's available on DVD, and quite simply, I recommend it. The historic scenes of fishing schooners on the Grand Banks, the exciting race back to Gloucester, the interplay of the captains and the crew with the spoiled brat Harvey Cheyne are all very worthwhile. The framing material of Cheyne with his father and at the snooty private school he attends (and gets suspended from) in Connecticut are not so exciting to me, but the fishermen are all of them superb characters brilliantly portrayed.
Rating: 4 of 5 possible apples
[Edit: I see that IMDB dates the film to 1937, though the DVD packaging says 1938. Anyway, it's a classic worth seeing.]
We got it because someone told Gary it had an "infamous scene with a hurdy gurdy". Actually it has several scenes with the hurdy gurdy, though I'm not sure what makes them infamous. If you expect it to follow the plot of Rudyard Kipling's novel very closely, you'll be disappointed. But it stands well on its own as a derivative work. Tracy handed in a performance that earned him an academy award and I agree with that decision. He even sings creditably, not like some operatic professional bursting into song on deck, but like a fisherman who loves music and is going to sing whether he sounds great or not.
It's available on DVD, and quite simply, I recommend it. The historic scenes of fishing schooners on the Grand Banks, the exciting race back to Gloucester, the interplay of the captains and the crew with the spoiled brat Harvey Cheyne are all very worthwhile. The framing material of Cheyne with his father and at the snooty private school he attends (and gets suspended from) in Connecticut are not so exciting to me, but the fishermen are all of them superb characters brilliantly portrayed.
Rating: 4 of 5 possible apples
[Edit: I see that IMDB dates the film to 1937, though the DVD packaging says 1938. Anyway, it's a classic worth seeing.]
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 08:27 pm (UTC)old movies that I've missed, but on the "Big Screen" I know thats
done in some places. Hmm.
Black and white is okay, as long as its interesting. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 12:33 pm (UTC)