What do you get when you take one of the greatest directors of his time (Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind), and perhaps of all time, give him a cast that reads like a Who's Who in Hollywood of the 1930's and 40's (Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, John Carradine), and have them all perform a swashbuckling tear-jerker by Rudyard Kipling? The story, by the way, is of a spoiled-rotten young lad who falls off an ocean liner and is picked up by fishermen on their way out for a three-month tour of hard work and rough living. Well, put all of this together and you get a pretty good candidate for a top movie in the history of film-making -- and that's before you add in the protagonist! I'll avoid any debate about Shirley Temple by just stating that, in my not-so-humble opinion, Freddie Bartholomew was by far the greatest BOY actor ever. Just to watch him in this film and in Little Lord Fauntleroy clinches it. Harvey Cheyne and Cedric Erroll (Fauntleroy) are about as opposite characters as two boys could be, and Bartholomew portrays each of them with such depth and texture you would pledge each was his "real" personality. What a pity that because of age-discrimination he was never able to enjoy the fruits of his labor: adults fought over it and stole all of it from him. Please view this movie, preferably in good company and when you won't be distracted; you'll not want to miss a second of it.
Review of Captains Courageous
