FILM · 1937 · USA
Captains Courageous
- Directed by
- Victor Fleming
- Runtime
- 115 min
- Studio
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
25 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (25)
- #001
Years later, Spencer Tracy admitted that he never found himself convincing as a Portuguese fisherman.
- #002
For a difficult shot in which Freddie Bartholomew was to fall from one of the dories racing toward We're Here, Victor Fleming rehearsed for an hour, hoping Bartholomew would not have to do more than one take in the icy waters. Captain J. M. Hersey, one of the sailors who had helped the crew in real life and was then a crew member and an Olympic swimmer, said: "If Spencer Tracy had trouble pulling Freddie into the dory, Stubby Kruger, out of camera range, was ready to dive in, but Freddie was sure everything would go right. The kid has courage, all right. A second dory was ready to run in case of any mishap, and Mr. Fleming himself had one leg over the rail." As Tracy's dory came alongside, Freddie put one foot on the rail, started to pass the trawler, and made a backward header. Tracy grabbed him by the collar as he came up fast, caught the boy's trousers with his other hand, and hauled him in as if he were landing a codfish. He raised the dory, ran Freddie below, stripped him, dried him, rubbed him down, and put him between blankets in a bunk, where Lionel Barrymore, Charley Grapewin, Tracy and others came down and teased him about his high dive at the Olympics.
- #003
Freddie Bartholomew said this was his favorite film. Shooting lasted about a year, and the cast was like a family to him. Freddie said that when filming ended, they all began to cry.
- #004
According to a report in the November 18, 1938 issue of Motion Picture Daily, Federal Judge Harry Hollzer awarded $30,000 against MGM to Mrs. Helen Gonmesen, the widow of sailor Kristen Gonmesen, who fell overboard into the Pacific Ocean during the shooting. The suit was based on the claim that the vessel used was unsafe and unseaworthy.
- #005
When Spencer Tracy received his Oscar statuette for this film, he was surprised to find it had been engraved in the name of the comic-strip character "Dick Tracy." An embarrassing Academy statuette was replaced.
- #006
Because both Freddie Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney were of school age, the production had to set aside regular time to educate them both.
- #007
Spencer Tracy initially turned down the role of Manuel because he thought it was too secondary to the boy. He did not try to use a Portuguese accent, basing his accent in the film instead on the Yiddish voice he had used during his first stage performance. He initially hated his performance in the film until it earned him good reviews and an Oscar nomination.
- #008
None of the shooting actually took place at sea. A copy of the fishing schooner four-fifths its size was built in a tank. The actors walked there every day during filming. The distant and tracking shots of the schooner were of a real ship filmed at sea and added to the film as needed.
- #009
For the sake of authenticity, live cod were imported to the set from Washington State.
- #010
The instrument Manuel plays while singing is the hurdy gurdy. It is a strange hybrid of a keyboard instrument and a string instrument that originated in France in the Middle Ages and is thought to have evolved from the violin. Instead of a bow, a crank turns a wooden wheel that touches the strings to produce sound. In addition to up to three melody strings, it has up to three drone strings that give it a bagpipe-like sound. The melody is created by pressing small piano-like keys that cause tiny rods to rise and change the length of the melody string and therefore its pitch. Original hurdy gurdies were very large and required two people to play them.
- #011
Harvey Cheyne's autumn scene was to be shot on November 20, 1936 in a single continuous take.
- #012
The Fishermen's Memorial at the end of the film is a copy of the one in Gloucester, MA. The real memorial can be seen at the beginning of The Perfect Storm (2000), another film about Gloucester fishermen.
- #013
This is the only film in which Freddie Bartholomew was allowed to play a less than virtuous character.
- #014
Spencer Tracy regularly complained about the two-hour daily process of having his hair curled and undoubtedly improvised much of his "Portuguese" accent as he went along. Fortunately, the screenwriters had tried to adapt Manuel's dialogue to Tracy as much as possible while staying true to the original spirit of Rudyard Kipling's story.
- #015
The Canadian fishing and racing schooner Bluenose was used during filming for full views of the ship. Bluenose was a Canadian national symbol from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. It represented the pride of the Canadian fishing fleet and was the winner of the International Fishermen's Trophy for 17 years.
- #016
The shooting of Manuel's death scene took three days, from February 12 to 15, 1937.
- #017
Spencer Tracy found that the real challenge of playing Manuel was showing him as a genuinely happy man without making him look like a fool. MGM general manager Edward Mannix warned Tracy not to use an accent because it could sound ridiculous.
- #018
John Lee Mahin did not accept his Oscar nomination certificate until 1939 because at the time of his nomination he was on the board of the Writers Guild, and there was a dispute between the Guild and the Academy over possible discrimination on the Writers Branch award committee.
- #019
It was the first MGM film shown on television, in 1955.
- #020
The exterior of the building used for the Cheyne mansion at the start of the film stands on Washington Boulevard in Culver City, CA. Originally home to the offices of Thomas H. Ince Corp., the structure became the headquarters of Selznick-International and also served as its corporate logo.
- #021
MGM bought a fishing boat in Gloucester, MA, and it set out for Newfoundland for background shooting. It later traveled through the Panama Canal to California, where Long Beach Harbor stood in for Gloucester.
- #022
A "Hollywood Reporter" article on the Los Angeles premiere noted that, for the first time in Hollywood history, pickets in evening dress were serving on a strike line. Although the report did not say so specifically, the protest was connected to strikes that had begun in the industry in early May. According to various front-page stories in the Hollywood Reporter between May 1 and May 14, an industry-wide general strike was averted on May 12 or 13, but some studios had not yet signed the relevant agreements. MGM appears to have been one studio that had not yet signed.
- #023
At one point a sailor calls the boy a "jonah." A jonah is a person believed to bring bad luck. The term comes from the biblical story of Jonah, who was given a task by God but tried to flee from it. A terrible storm arises on a ship carrying someone running from his responsibility, and the crew decides that one of their number has angered God. Jonah admits it is he, is thrown into the sea, and the waters calm. Jonah is later forgiven and survives.
- #024
Months before principal photography began, Victor Fleming sent a second-unit crew to Massachusetts to shoot in and around the pretty fishing town of Gloucester. While there, MGM bought an original schooner named Oretha F. Spinney and immediately converted it into the We're Here of the film's story.
- #025
Near the end of shooting, Victor Fleming had to go to the hospital for a minor operation that was initially expected to take only a few days. His recovery, however, was unexpectedly slow and caused a delay of several weeks in the film's production. MGM appointed director Jack Conway to take over the film temporarily until Fleming returned to work on February 1.
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