Larry Karaszewski on Captain's Courageous

Rudyard Kipling's 1897 novel about the redemption of a spoiled rich kid aboard a New England cod boat gets the MGM treatment and becomes a parable of fatherly responsibility, full of director Victor Fleming's trademark Christian symbolism. Spencer Tracy gets his first solo shot at stardom as Portuguese fisherman Manuel, a minor character in the book. Jack Conway directed two weeks when Fleming fell ill.