The Old Man and the Sea (1958 film)
Encyclopedia
The Old Man and the Sea is a 1958 film
starring Spencer Tracy
, in a portrayal for which he was nominated for a best actor Oscar. The screenplay (the "most literal, word-for-word rendition of a written story ever filmed") was adapted by Peter Viertel
from the novella of the same name
by Ernest Hemingway
, and the film was directed by John Sturges
. Sturges called it "technically the sloppiest picture I have ever made."
Dimitri Tiomkin
won the Academy Award for Best Original Score
for his work on the film, one that was also nominated for best color cinematography.
was the film's original director; after he withdrew, he was replaced by John Sturges
. The film's budget—originally $2 million— grew to $5 million "in search of suitable fish footage." According to Turner Classic Movies
, a February 2005 CNN
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."
Felipe Pazos Jr., who played the role of the boy in the film, is the son of the Cuban economist, Felipe Pazos
.
composed and conducted the music for the film. His soundtrack recording, with the Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra, was released in both stereo and mono by Columbia Records
.
of The New York Times
wrote:
Among the film's short-comings, 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 marlin
breaking the surface and shaking in violent battle are deflated by obvious showing on the process screen."
Time
noted that "the script follows the book in almost every detail" and called the novel a fable
"no more suitable for the screen than The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"; 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.
1958 in film
The year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
starring Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, in a portrayal for which he was nominated for a best actor Oscar. The screenplay (the "most literal, word-for-word rendition of a written story ever filmed") was adapted by Peter Viertel
Peter Viertel
Peter Viertel was an author and screenwriter.-Biography:He was born to Jewish parents in Dresden, Germany, the writer and actress Salka Viertel and the writer Berthold Viertel. In 1928, his parents moved to Santa Monica, California where Viertel grew up with his brothers, Hans and Thomas...
from the novella of the same name
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea is a novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cuba, and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging fisherman who...
by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, and the film was directed by John Sturges
John Sturges
John Eliot Sturges was an American film director. His movies include Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the O.K. Corral , The Magnificent Seven , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra .-Career:He started his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932...
. Sturges called it "technically the sloppiest picture I have ever made."
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
won the Academy Award for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
for his work on the film, one that was also nominated for best color cinematography.
Plot summary
Spencer Tracy is the Old Man, a Cuban fisherman who tries to haul in a huge fish that he catches far from shore.Cast
In addition to Tracy, the cast included the following:- Felipe Pazos Jr., the boy
- Harry BellaverHarry BellaverHarry Bellaver was an American stage, film and television actor who appeared in many roles from the 1930s through the 1980s.-Life and career:...
, Martin - Don DiamondDon DiamondDonald Alan "Don" Diamond 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 .-Career:...
, café proprietor - Don BlackmanDon BlackmanDon Blackman is an American jazz-funk pianist, singer, songwriter, producer born in Queens, New York.Blackman's neighbor as a child was Charles McPherson, and while still a teenager he played in McPherson's ensemble with Sam Jones and Louis Hayes...
, arm wrestler - Joey Ray, gambler
- Mary HemingwayMary Welsh HemingwayMary Welsh Hemingway was an American journalist and the fourth wife of Ernest Hemingway.Born in Minnesota, Welsh was a daughter of a lumberman. When she was 32, she married Lawrence Miller Cook, a drama student from Ohio. Their life together was short and they soon separated...
, tourist - Richard Alameda, gambler
- Tony Rosa, gambler
- Carlos Rivero, gambler
- Robert Alderette, gambler
- Mauritz Hugo, gambler
Production
Fred ZinnemannFred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...
was the film's original director; after he withdrew, he was replaced by John Sturges
John Sturges
John Eliot Sturges was an American film director. His movies include Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the O.K. Corral , The Magnificent Seven , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra .-Career:He started his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932...
. The film's budget—originally $2 million— grew to $5 million "in search of suitable fish footage." According to Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
, a February 2005 CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
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
Arthur Widmer
Arthur Widmer was an American film special effects pioneer. He invented the "Ultra Violet Travelling matte process", an early version of what would become known as bluescreen.-Career:...
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
Cabo Blanco, Peru
Cabo Blanco is a fishing village in northwestern Peru, 3 km northwest from El Alto, Talara, Piura. It was famous in the past among big-game fishermen and today is a noted surf break. The village takes its name from the light coloured nearby mountains....
Fishing Club in Peru. Mr. Glassell acted as special advisor for these sequences."
Felipe Pazos Jr., who played the role of the boy in the film, is the son of the Cuban economist, Felipe Pazos
Felipe Pazos
Felipe Pazos was a Cuban economist who initially supported the Cuban Revolution of Fidel Castro, but became disillusioned with the increasingly radical nature of the revolutionary government. Born in Havana, Pazos earned a doctorate from the University of Havana in 1938. He was a member of the...
.
Music
Veteran film composer Dimitri TiomkinDimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
composed and conducted the music for the film. His soundtrack recording, with the Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra, was released in both stereo and mono by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
.
Reception
Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote:
Credit Leland HaywardLeland HaywardLeland Hayward 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.-Early years:...
for trying something off the beaten track in making a motion-picture version of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the SeaThe Old Man and the SeaThe Old Man and the Sea is a novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cuba, and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging fisherman who...
, and credit Spencer TracySpencer TracySpencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
for a brave performance in its one big role. Also credit Dimitri TiomkinDimitri TiomkinDimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
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 short-comings, 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 marlin
Marlin
Marlin, family Istiophoridae, are fish with 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 derive from its resemblance to a sailor's marlinspike...
breaking the surface and shaking in violent battle are deflated by obvious showing on the process screen."
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
noted that "the script follows the book in almost every detail" and called the novel a fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
"no more suitable for the screen than The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, commonly known as Prufrock, is a poem by T. S. Eliot, begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915. Described as a "drama of literary anguish," it presents a stream of consciousness in the form of a dramatic monologue, and marked the beginning of...
"; 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.