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The Old Man and the Sea (1958)

Director: John Sturges

Average user rating

3 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A painfully sincere, meticulously faithful, and pitifully plodding adaptation of Hemingway's novel about the symbolic struggle between an old Mexican fisherman and a giant marlin. At its most embarrassing in the endless monologues where Tracy has to mouth Hemingway's notion of a poetic patois ('You're a fine fish, Fish, you fight a brave good fight'). The pity of it is that some fine camerawork (from a team that included James Wong Howe and Floyd Crosby) is sabotaged by clumsy back projection and hideous colour matching. Hemingway himself can be briefly glimpsed in a bar scene towards the end.

Author: TM

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

Enrique said...

Posted on Jan 27 2011 17:58 The old fisherman was Cuban, not Mexican, as Time Out reviewer asserts.

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chicho said...

Posted on Feb 19 2008 20:49 i bhgaxst decv asx oijhas

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ccook said...

Posted on Dec 24 2007 01:09 I was very young when I saw this movie and I can only remember it was stunning. An old man coming to the end of his life having not accomplished anything of worth. Most of us at one time or other has to face what we have done with our lives up to a particular point and then make a decision. Old man spencer's decision was to take a chance on himself, go into deep unkown waters and hope and fight for the best. The best of his character emerged facing overwhelming odds and although he did not bring home a whole fish he brought home a story about how he won AGAINST ALL ODDS, his life, his dignity. We would like to think that we are going to die loved by many and respected and accepted. He was. Will you be able to say that when you face death?
Great story and adaptation.

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