Great Films with a Hook
When you can’t go fishing, you might as well watch a good fishing movie. Here are four sure to hook you.
Captains Courageous was filmed in 1927 and plays as well today as it did almost 90 years ago. Based on the 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling, Captains details the adventures of Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Batholomew), a privileged and spoiled young man recently expelled from his exclusive boarding school.
Taken by his father on an overseas business trip as a form of counseling, Cheyne is swept overboard off the coast of Newfoundland. Rescued by a passing Grand Banks fishing schooner, the youngster is unable to convince his rescuers to interrupt their journey to return him to port. Instead, he must accept a low-wage job to cover his keep until the boat’s scheduled return three months hence.
Cheyne soon finds that bragging, cheating and complaining do him no good among rugged fishermen. Under the guidance of Manuel, a Portuguese-American seaman played by a brilliant Spencer Tracy, Cheyne learns the way of life at sea and the skills of a fisherman.
Blossoming under the harsh conditions, the lad changes before our eyes into an admirable young man. He is eventually reunited with his father, who is overwhelmed that the son he believed lost at sea is still alive but even more so at the maturing changes his son has undergone.
Fast forward to 1944 for To Have and Have Not, a multi-layered World War II film set in Fort de France, Martinique. On the first level it is a conflict story. Humphrey Bogart plays an American sport fishing captain (Henry Morgan) who, plying his trade on the island, gets involved smuggling for the French resistance.
Cover girl model Lauren Bacall, in her first movie role at age 19, was brought in to spice up the movie’s romantic interest, thus a love story is the second level of the film. Off-screen she and Bogart actually fell in love, the third level. And at that point in the film the celluloid begins to smolder.
Add in some great character acting by Walter Brennan and Hoagy Carmichael, and you’ve got a hooker of cinematic art — You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve?
1958 gave us another fishing classic, The Old Man and the Sea, again starring Spencer Tracy. Taken from a 1952 novella that won Ernest Hemingway the Pulitzer that year and led to a Nobel Prize, the film retains many of the book’s internal (and classic Hemingway) monologues.
A Cuban fisherman in his waning years hooks a giant blue marlin far offshore and battles him for three exhausting days. See the film to find out what happens next. If you already know, view it to renew your experience with both Hemingway and Tracy, two masters at the peak of their craft.
The best recently released fishing movie is 2011’s odd Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. A wealthy Yemeni sheik falls in love with fly fishing for salmon while living in England and decides to bring that experience to the desert-living people of his native land.
He and his attractive British financial consultant manage to finagle the cooperation of Britain’s leading expert on salmon, icily played by Ewan McGregor, who reluctantly signs on to the seemingly impossible challenge.
From there the film becomes a love story, a political satire and a charming work of art. If you’ve ever suspected the sanity of fly anglers, this film will confirm your suspicions.
Enjoy this quartet these cold winter nights and replay them any time the fishing is slow.