Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 25-January-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Captains Courageous (1937)

Child actors often appear awkward, but then they are usually asked to strike unbelievable attitudes in movies that treat them as garnish. When a talented tyke gives a natural performance in a good movie, I appreciate him or her with particular zeal. Such is the case with Freddie Bartholomew in Captains Courageous.

Bartholomew excels in the role of Harvey Cheyne, a motherless boy who lives with his father (Melvyn Douglas) and a host of servants in a New York mansion. Harvey is not a bad seed exactly; he just believes that since everything always goes his way at home, the world at large should bend to his will. When his manipulation and domineering land him in hot water at school, the headmaster pays his father a visit. Like Harvey, Mr. Cheyne is made of decent stuff but is generally confused. Although he loves his son, he allows the pressures of business to distract him from parenting.

In an effort to make up for neglect (and because Harvey has been expelled for the rest of the term), Mr. Cheyne brings his son with him on a trip to Europe. Soon after setting sail, however, Harvey falls overboard unbeknownst to anyone on the ship. He is rescued by Spencer Tracy playing a fisherman with a questionable Portuguese accent and a lot of heart. (This part brought Tracy the first of his back-to-back Oscars.) The seaman Manuel is one of a crew out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, that would lose a full season's wages if it took the time to deliver a foundling back to land. The bluff captain (Lionel Barrymore) tells Harvey to earn his keep for three months until their stint is over. You can imagine what Harvey says to that.

What follows is the story of how a spoiled and lonely little boy learns to work hard and get along with others in an intense communal situation. His journey is facilitated by Manuel, who becomes the father he never had. The fisherman enjoys his strenuous life far more than Harvey ever enjoyed his cushy one and passes on the sources of his joy. Manuel's cheerfulness is interrupted only once when another crewman (John Carradine) threatens to tan Harvey's hide. (What a face Carradine had! It amazes me whenever I see it.) Throughout the transformation Bartholomew gracefully exhibits Harvey's feelings of discovery, pride, and love. Like him, you wish that the bubble of happiness he fell into might last forever.

But time and tide wait for no boy, and before he knows it he is back on land waiting for his father to retrieve him. At this point the focus shifts to the common theme of thirties cinema, the clash between money and a more lasting investment. Has losing and regaining his son really jump-started Mr. Cheyne's paternal instincts? Will Harvey be able to shift his affections to old family ties that had failed him? The movie leaves you with the hope that the son's new lease on life and the father's delight at a second chance have given them courage enough to see it through.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.