Captains Courageous, 1937 (Grade B)

Director: Victor Fleming
Awards Academy Award for Best Actor Award to Spencer Tracy, plus other nominations
Starring:  Spencer Tracy; Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore, Micky Rooney. Melvyn Douglas, John Carradine

sez says: After the splashy titles (pun intended, you'll have to see the movie to see what I mean) this movie took off in an unexpected direction. I thought would be a swashbuckler--but it is not.  It is really a nicely done tale of a boy, who app eras to be a brat, but who in fact just needs someone (a father) to be in his life as a model. Amazingly it  avoids the worst sort of the schwarmy sentimentality that you might expect. It focuses in on the real work done on fishing boats and how a crew works together, how they resolve conflict, how they can seriously compete with out malice. It demonstrates the importance of honesty and integrity as functional aspects of human behavior--not just because it is"good" for its own sake, but because it makes everyone safe if we all cooperate and treat each other fairly.  Add to that some truly amazing photos of fishing ships flying through the ocean. Plus there is general, all-around good acting--including Spencer Tracy as a Portuguese fisherman--Having seen him in so many other movies it is, at first, hard to get use to him in this unusual role, but he pulls it off. (Recommended with a strong B)