1,001 Films: "Captains Courageous" (1937)

Victor Fleming's big pre-Oz, pre-Gone With the Wind success was another adaptation: Captains Courageous, an Americanisation of Kipling's novel about a bratty Richie Rich type (Freddie Bartholomew) who, while on a cruise with his tycoon father, topples overboard under the influence of too many ice cream sodas and is picked up by a fishing vessel following in the liner's wake. Crammed below decks, he's obliged to breathe the same air as rough-knuckled navvies such as Spencer Tracy's Manuel, who doles out a treatment deserving of the boy: one of the reasons the film isn't revived more often on TV may be as it features several of the most satisfying slaps about the head and kicks to the behind any child star has ever received on screen.

Name directors probably wouldn't go near this material nowadays, for fear of coming up with something too adult for family audiences and something too childlike for grown-ups. Certainly, it now invites the viewer to take it with a scooped handful of sea salt: there are a good many raucous shanties to sit through, and it doesn't appear to be in any hurry to get anywhere. For all that, Captains Courageous stands as broadly entertaining, and the episodic narrative allows for some distinct understanding of the daily grind of men at sea: the endless casting-out and reeling-in, the unglamorous gutting of fish and tossing of entrails over the side.

The front and rear projections are integrated with great care, and technically, it remains very convincing - it may be the case that Fleming has his marine unit to thank not just for providing this film with its scale and verisimilitude, but for subsequently landing him the two biggest gigs of his (or anybody else's) career. A good deal of its charm is down to the performers: Tracy, sporting a brine-thick Portuguese accent, gives one of those clownish turns stars are sometimes allowed to get away with, counterbalancing the ham with the degree of heart beneath it, and he works up a nice double-act with the kid: that the adventure feels jolly and stirring, rather than merely punitive, can be attributed to Bartholomew's ability to take the trials and misfortunes that befall him like the most seasoned of troopers.

Captains Courageous is available on DVD through Warner Home Video.