''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a 1958 American

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

John Sturges John Eliot Sturges (; January 3, 1910 – August 18, 1992) was an American film director. His films include ''Bad Day at Black Rock'' (1955), '' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'' (1957), '' The Magnificent Seven'' (1960), '' The Great Escape'' (19 ...

and starring

Spencer Tracy Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...

. The screenplay by

Peter Viertel Peter Viertel (16 November 1920 – 4 November 2007) was an author and screenwriter. Biography Viertel was born to Jewish parents in Dresden, Germany, the writer and actress Salka Viertel and the writer Berthold Viertel. In 1928, his parents mov ...

was based on the 1952 novel of the same name by

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

Dimitri Tiomkin Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (, ; May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979) was a Russian-born American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in St. Petersburg, Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City ...

won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the film. The film was also nominated for Best Color Cinematography ( Howe) and Best Actor (Tracy).

Plot

The Old Man in the film is a Cuban fisherman who has gone 84 days without a catch. His only friend is a 14-year-old boy named Manolin, who has been barred by his father from accompanying the Old Man out to sea. On the Old Man's 85th day out, he finally hooks a huge

marlin Marlins are fish from the family Istiophoridae, which includes about 10 species. A marlin has an elongated body, a spear-like snout or bill, and a long, rigid dorsal fin which extends forward to form a crest. Its common name is thought to deri ...

, which he then tries to haul in from far out past shore. For three days and nights he battles the fish, which is portrayed in the film (as it had been in Hemingway's novella) as a trial of mental and physical courage that becomes the ultimate test for him of his worth as a man.

Cast

as The Old Man * Felipe Pazos Jr. as Manolin * Harry Bellaver as Martin *

Don Diamond Donald Alan Diamond (June 4, 1921 – June 19, 2011) was an American radio, film, and television actor who portrayed "Crazy Cat", the sidekick and heir apparent to Chief Wild Eagle on the popular 1960s television sitcom, ''F Troop'' (1965–19 ...

as Café proprietor * Don Blackman as Arm wrestler * Joey Ray as a gambler * Richard Alameda as a gambler * Tony Rosa as a gambler * Carlos Rivero as a gambler * Robert Alderette as a gambler *

Don Alvarado Don Alvarado (born José Ray Paige, November 4, 1904 – March 31, 1967) was an American actor, assistant director and film production manager. Life and career Born Jose Paige in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Alvarado first studied agriculture on ...

(uncredited) as a waiter

Production

The director originally assigned to the film was

Fred Zinnemann Alfred ''Fred'' Zinnemann (April 29, 1907 – March 14, 1997) was an Austrian Empire-born American film director. He won four Academy Awards for directing and producing films in various genres, including thrillers, westerns, film noir and pla ...

, but he withdrew, and was replaced by

. The film's budget, originally $2 million, grew to $5 million "in search of suitable fish footage." Sturges called it "technically the sloppiest picture I have ever made." According to

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...

, a February 2005

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

article points out that ''The Old Man and the Sea'' was one of the first films to "use a bluescreen compositing technology invented by Arthur Widmer, that combined actors on a soundstage with a pre-filmed background." The credits note that "Some of the marlin film used in this picture was of the world's record catch by Alfred C. Glassell Jr. at the Cabo Blanco Fishing Club in Peru. Mr. Glassell acted as special advisor for these sequences."

Music

Veteran film composer

composed and conducted the music for the film. His soundtrack recording, with the Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra, was recorded in the auditorium of Hollywood Post No. 43, American Legion, in Hollywood; '' Billboard'' reported that the acoustics in the Hollywood Legion were "far superior to most studio space in Hollywood and similar to that of the best concert halls." During the week of April 21, 1958, Columbia held open sessions for ''The Old Man and the Sea'' at the Legion Hall. The soundtrack was later released in both stereo and mono by Columbia Records.

Reception

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote:

Credit
Leland Hayward Leland Hayward (September 13, 1902 – March 18, 1971) was a Hollywood and Broadway agent and theatrical producer. He produced the original Broadway stage productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's '' South Pacific'' and ''The Sound of Music''. ...
for trying something off the beaten track in making a motion-picture version of Ernest Hemingway's ''
The Old Man and the Sea ''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. O ...
'', and credit
Spencer Tracy Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...
for a brave performance in its one big role. Also credit
Dimitri Tiomkin Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (, ; May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979) was a Russian-born American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in St. Petersburg, Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City ...
for providing a musical score that virtually puts Mr. Tracy in the position of a soloist with a symphony. And that just about completes a run-down of the praiseworthy aspects of this film.

Among the film's shortcomings, Crowther notes, is that "an essential feeling of the sweep and surge of the open sea is not achieved in precise and placid pictures that obviously were shot in a studio tank. There are, to be sure, some lovely long shots of Cuban villages and the colorful coast...But the main drama, that of the ordeal, is played in a studio tank, and even some fine shots of a

breaking the surface and shaking in violent battle are deflated by obvious showing on the process screen." The film has been described as the "most literal, word-for-word rendition of a written story ever filmed". ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' noted that "the script follows the book in almost every detail", but called the novel a

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse (poetry), verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphized, and that illustrat ...

"no more suitable for the screen than '' The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock''". ''Time'' pointed out that Tracy was "never permitted to catch a marlin" while on location, so the "camera could never catch him at it" and the result is "Sturges must cross-cut so interminably—fish, Tracy, fish, Tracy—that Old Man loses the lifelikeness, the excitement, and above all the generosity of rhythm that the theme requires. According to producer Hayward, Hemingway was pleased with the film, and said it had "a wonderful emotional quality and eis very grateful and pleased with the transference of his material to the screen. He thought Tracy was great (in light of his quarrels with him this is quite a compliment) ... the photography was excellent ... the handling of the fishing and mechanical fish very good. Had some minor dislikes ... but all in all he was terribly high on the picture and pleased with it." Hemingway was notorious for his dislike for most of the film adaptations of his stories, and in 1959, he implicitly disagreed with Hayward's assessment, stating that the only Hollywood adaptation of one of his stories that he liked was ''

The Killers The Killers are an American rock band formed in Las Vegas in 2001 by Brandon Flowers (lead vocals, keyboards, bass) and Dave Keuning (lead guitar, backing vocals). After going through a number of short-term bass players and drummers in t ...

''.

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Old Man And The Sea 1958 films 1950s adventure drama films American adventure drama films Films scored by Dimitri Tiomkin Films about fishing Films about old age Films based on works by Ernest Hemingway Films directed by John Sturges Films directed by Fred Zinnemann Films set in Cuba Films set in the Caribbean Films shot in Cuba Films shot in Ecuador Films shot in Peru Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award Sea adventure films Warner Bros. films Films set on boats American survival films 1958 drama films 1950s English-language films 1950s American films