Spencer Tracy won his first Best Actor Oscar for his poignant portrayal of a simple fisherman in Victor Fleming’s Captains Courageous (1937), based on Rudyard Kipling’s marvelous 1897 novel.
Irving Thalberg, MGM’s head of production, had bought the rights to Captains Courageous in January 1934, in keeping with his vision of making great films out of great literature. He signed Spencer Tracy a year later, though Thalberg did not live to enjoy the premiere of this filmmaking gem on May 17, 1937, having died of pneumonia the previous September.
Thalberg had chosen the right story and the right actor.
The film opens with spoiled rich kid, Harvey, played by Freddie Bartholomew, “rusticated” from school due to his antics. He heads to Europe with his father aboard the newly built Queen Anne. His American business tycoon father, Frank Burton Cheyne, played by Melvyn Douglas, partly owns the ship.
“A new kind of fish”
In a dramatic plot twist, Harvey slips overboard and is picked up by a simple Portuguese fisherman named Manuel, who wears a gold cross. Manuel, tooling around in his dory, has a richness of spirit that shines through, providing a sharp contrast to the vacuousness of material wealth without spiritual moorings. “Fifteen years I’ve been fishing. First time I catched a fish like you,” says Manuel. “I got new kind of fish. He got no tail. He got pants on his dorsal fin.”
Spoiled does not begin to describe Harvey Cheyne. When Manuel takes him aboard the schooner on whose crew he serves for three months of fishing off the coast of Gloucester on Cape Ann in Massachusetts, Harvey demands to see the captain of the ship — immediately — then climbs to the deck and runs into Captain Disko Troop, played by Lionel Barrymore. Disko begins to put junior in his place, helped by his son Dan, played by Mickey Rooney. With Manuel’s example and guidance Harvey gradually begins to fit into those britches, losing himself in the piscatorial mission for $3 a month, with all its color and danger.
A danger that becomes all too real at the end.
A deeply Catholic soul
Manuel is Roman Catholic and deeply spiritual, singing on his “hurdy gurdy” from the depths of his soul, “Yeah, ho little fish, don’t cry, don’t cry.” And he tells Harvey about Saint Jose Angel, a “very nice fellow” watching over them, and sings songs from the recesses of his heart that he “(just finds) in his mouth… sometimes a song so big and sweet inside, I just can’t get him out and then I look up at stars and maybe cry I feel so good.” “Don’t you never feel like this?” Harvey is silent. “No, I guess you don’t.”
“Nobody else ever did either,” says Harvey. Manuel begs to differ. His father left him the hurdy gurdy and taught him how to fish and to sail and gave him life and taught him how to feel good, inside and out, and, besides all that, had 17 kids. He speaks of his father’s death at sea six years earlier:
“The Savior, he take my father up to fishermen’s heaven, up with all his old friends… The Savior, he see my father all tired and wet down there in the water, so he light the harbor… and he say, come on up here Manuel… and my father, he say, thank you… and the Savior, he put his arm around my father and he gave him brand new dory to fish in heaven…”
Manuel reminds Harvey the apostles were all fishermen. “I think the Savior, he the best fisherman, but my father, he come next.”
Two candles for the Virgin
Manuel is intent on spending a piece of his earnings from his abundant catch to buy and light two candles in the Catholic church in Gloucester, Our Lady of Good Voyage, in gratitude to the Virgin Mary for her intercession and protection, and in his late father’s honor. He also gives away most of the reward money to the church for the benefit of the needy.
When Mr. Cheyne picks up his son in Gloucester, Harvey has become a man who now appreciates his father, while his father’s love of his son is renewed and strengthened.
The film only grows in stature as the years roll by, and is always a joy to watch, with new discoveries each time, given its many layers of meaning.
As an interesting aside, Spencer Tracy’s son John, who played such a large role in the life of his father, was the same age as Freddie Bartholomew and the two became friends.
Turner Classic Movies will air Captains Courageous on July 2 at 11:45 p.m. EST. The film is also available on DVD, and streams on Amazon and other platforms.
