The Old Man and the Sea (1958)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

You won't be disappointed!

People are voting emotionally.

Great Film overall

A film adaptation of Hemingway's Pulitzer winning novella. The best that can be said about it is Spencer Tracy's Academy Award nominated performance, a winning score, and the sumptuous colour photography also recognised that year. It is a completely faithful adaptation to the novella in terms of narrative and Tracy embodies the old man wonderfully, particularly in capturing the modesty and kindliness of Santiago - the Cuban apprentice boy's hero. The film's shortcomings can be said to be the production values of what is the central piece of the film - the scenes at sea. We are also thwarted by the inability of the producers to effect Santiago's wrestling with the fish, though brilliant stock footage of big fish assuages this disappointment in many of the sequences. All in all, viewers will admire Tracy for his naturalism on screen - something that comes easy to very few film actors in the history of cinema.

4/21/18. Even with the stellar casting of Tracy as the old man, this movie was just way too depressing and long. The poor man appeared delirious most of the time battling the elements as well as the sharks out to eat up his catch. That's the essence of this movie.

Guess who's coming to dinner,,,,,,,if that one put a lump in your throat, this one will, too. The fisherman's love of the sea, his love for "the boy" and his desire to keep doing what he has always done. Harder at his age, but still his joy. I think we see an old soul in "the boy" and a lost art in Spencer Tracy.His time on the sea, alone, was so beautiful and his determination should make us all feel a little wimpy for complaining that minor aches and pains keep us, at times, from our appointed duties. His love for his craft does not lessen with his age or abilities. Every young reader should be required to read Hemingway...especially this one. Every old reader should read it again............or just watch this film It is very true to the spirit of the novel.

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.