Everyone knows I'm sensitive to the annoying sound of people's voices. You've heard me complain about William Holden, Joel McCrea, Deborah Kerr, and of course, Spencer Tracy. "Why doesn't he blow his nose?" I've frequently asked, lamenting the poor choices of studios asking him to narrate a movie. You can imagine how much I wasn't looking forward to The Old Man and the Sea, in which he both narrated and talked to himself.
However, he must have listened to me and blown his nose before recording of the narration. His seemed to be the perfect voice to read aloud monotonous and soothing passages of Ernest Hemingway's novel. As much as I was prepared to cringe to hear him give another terrible attempt at Hispanic accent, after his disastrous attempts in Captains Courageous and Tortilla Flat, I was happily spared. He didn't try so hard, and he didn't torture anyone by saying "feeshes" instead of "fishes." No, he didn't fool anyone into thinking he was Cuban, but at least it wasn't laughably awful.
All in all, I didn't hate this movie as much as I thought I would. In itself, it's a pretty boring story. An old man goes out into a little fishing boat and tries to hook a really big fish. He's alone so he talks to himself and thinks back on his memories. If you know Ernest Hemingway, you know how difficult it can be to adapt his internal books into a movie, and Peter Viertel's screenplay does an excellent job translating the tone and communicating to the audience the Why in an extremely simple story. If you really hate Spencer Tracy, you might want to try the Anthony Quinn version, but if I didn't mind watching this version, it can't possibly be that bad.
However, he must have listened to me and blown his nose before recording of the narration. His seemed to be the perfect voice to read aloud monotonous and soothing passages of Ernest Hemingway's novel. As much as I was prepared to cringe to hear him give another terrible attempt at Hispanic accent, after his disastrous attempts in Captains Courageous and Tortilla Flat, I was happily spared. He didn't try so hard, and he didn't torture anyone by saying "feeshes" instead of "fishes." No, he didn't fool anyone into thinking he was Cuban, but at least it wasn't laughably awful.
All in all, I didn't hate this movie as much as I thought I would. In itself, it's a pretty boring story. An old man goes out into a little fishing boat and tries to hook a really big fish. He's alone so he talks to himself and thinks back on his memories. If you know Ernest Hemingway, you know how difficult it can be to adapt his internal books into a movie, and Peter Viertel's screenplay does an excellent job translating the tone and communicating to the audience the Why in an extremely simple story. If you really hate Spencer Tracy, you might want to try the Anthony Quinn version, but if I didn't mind watching this version, it can't possibly be that bad.