Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

edwagreen Even writer Ernest Hemingway was disappointed when he saw the film.Besides starring in the film, Spencer Tracy narrates the vast majority of it. He is the old man, who hasn't caught a fish in 84 days and laments that fact. A young lad deeply cares for him, but the latter's father wants to keep the son away from the Tracy character.Tracy reflects on the past as he goes out once again to fish on the 85th day. Hooking a large fish, only to see the latter devoured by whales.Tracy is philosophic through the film, especially when he went way out to sea for that day's adventure.Exhausted, he returns to his hut and the boy is there, promising a new day. At that point, the film ends.

evening1 Spencer Tracy turns in a strong performance here as an aging fisherman who hooks a gargantuan marlin after an 84-day-long dry spell.The Old Man pours his soul into reeling in the stunning catch but nature works against him: "Fish! You're going to die anyway. Do you have to kill me, too?" It's not only the fish the Old Man battles but voracious predators of the deep. ("He knew this was a shark who had no fear at all and would do exactly what he pleased.") Everyone can identify with this man, especially as they get older. ("Anybody can be a fisherman in May," the Old Man wistfully opines.) At the heart of the tale is a warm friendship between the man and a local boy, played with preternatural maturity by Felipe Pazos, Jr. "The Old Man had taught the boy to fish, and he loved him" is the explanation.In the credits we learn that some of the marlin sequences were footage from when a record-setting marlin was caught at Capo Blanco, Peru, by Alfred Glassel, Jr., in 1953. The fish weighed in at 1,560 pounds, according to Wikipedia. Indeed, Wikipedia also notes that Hemingway caught a 700-pound marlin while on location for the filming of his novella! I was intrigued to read, as well, that the beautiful love story "Undertow" also was filmed at this remote corner of Peru. (Please see my review.)Afternote: It's interesting that the crass tourist seen at the end of the film was played by Hemingway's fourth and final wife, Mary. Her comments plunge us from lofty contemplations to the most mundane -- a dismal coda from a writer who would soon take his own life.

Robert J. Maxwell Spencer Tracy is Santiago, an old impoverished Cuban fisherman who has had eighty-four days of bad luck and is being helped to survive by a young boy of the village. Tracy takes his little fishing boat farther out than usual, lands a giant marlin after a fierce three-day struggle, and then loses his trophy to the sharks who tear the great fish to pieces, leaving only the head, spine, and tail.If it get off to something of a slow start, it nevertheless involves us in Tracy's fate all the way. There are lyrical interludes while Tracy watches the birds, the flying fish, the porpoises, and dreams of lions on the African shore. He follows the baseball in the newspapers and admires Joe DiMaggio.And the battles are monumental. Tracy has to fight the huge marlin, then the multitude of sharks that attack it, and -- constantly -- his own age and fatigue. The viewer gets to feel the desperation behind all of these contests. Tracy pulls it off with the help of Dmitri Tiomkin's somewhat bombastic score, with its echoes of "Rio Bravo" and "High Noon." There are three problems though. First, modern viewers have been spoiled by recent advances in special effects and process work. The marlin, seen up close, looks like the rubber bladder it is, even when disguised by the blurry image representing Tracy's dizziness. After it's been stripped by the sharks, the spine looks like a lead pipe bought at the local plumber's, with a few plastic ribs attached. The scenes of the marlin leaping out of the sea aren't well integrated with the studio footage.Second -- and let's face facts -- Big Ernie doesn't translate well to the screen. His bare-bones attempts at thought-provoking folk poetry come across as stilted and sometimes risible.Tracy (to himself): "Do not blame the hand. It is not the hand's fault." (To his cramped hand): "You have been a long time with the fish." Third, there is a problem with the casting. Harry Bellaver is a pug, or a cop, or a reporter in Hollywood movies. He is not a Cuban bartender; he is not strong and has no aficion. Most of all, there is a problem with Spencer Tracy, an actor whom I deeply admire. Even my crude Irish stepfather from Charlestown who never had a sensitive thought in his life, was once moved to say, "Y'know, he's a good-lookin' guy. I don't mean handsome, but manly." But Tracy is not a poor Cuban fisherman. Ernie himself said Tracy "looks like a fat, rich actor." He didn't care for the boy either, who looked like "a cross between a tadpole and Anita Loos." I'm certain I've read somewhere that Hemingway was among the spectators at the arm wrestling contest flashback but I'm not sure it's true.Despite these deficiencies, the author, the cast and crew pull it off. Hemingway had Hispanic fatalism down pat. In the face of what we would call bad luck, they become Stoics. That Olympian generalization isn't mine. A Latin American professor devoted an entire lecture to it. It's a moving and tragic story touching on Hemingway's familiar themes of pride and defeat. As Hemingway has the fisherman say, "You can destroy a man but you can not defeat him," to which I'm tempted to reply, "Like hell, you can't."

wgregh For a mid-'50s (okay, that tired phrase, "mid-century") film, it is a half-decent depiction of Hemingway's classic, though Spencer Tracy's Cuban accent is obviously forced, if even available, and Tracy needed a good week under a tanning bed if the producer expected us to believe that even a gringo fisherman would look as pale as Tracy's character looked. The scenery was not as much in the studio appearance as I would have expected, except with the fish-fighting scenes looking forward in the boat to the fish. Wasn't the Old Man (Tracy) fighting a swordfish in one scene, or am I mistaken? I'm told by TMC's anchor that it was a fake fish because they couldn't catch a decent fish when shooting for the flick, and Hemingway wasn't a fan of the movie, making comments about Tracy not passing for a Cubano at all. But at least on my old Sony 19" Trinitron television (no digital here), the expired fish, its long backbone exposed, was perfect! And I love the ending shots of the fishermen silhouetted against the sunset, which as a former west Floridian, was totally real.