The Old Man and the Sea Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

The Old Man and the Sea Blu-ray Movie Review

Scott Hall was a more convincing Cuban.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III June 28, 2023

Stocky Irishman Spencer Tracy plays an emaciated Cuban fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea, which should tell you all you need to know about this scattershot but emotionally solid big-screen adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's beloved Pulitzer and Nobel-winning novella. Part travelogue, part slow-burning drama, but mostly a cinematic book-on-tape with hit-or-miss special effects, it nonetheless earned Tracy one of his record-tying nine Oscar nominations for Best Actor in 1959 despite an arguably more worthwhile performance in The Last Hurrah only one month later.

Featuring decently steady direction from John Sturges (who replaced Fred Zinnemann and had just worked with Tracy on the outstanding Bad Day at Black Rock), The Old Man and the Sea follows the day-to-day life of an unnamed Cuban fisherman (Tracy) during a particularly unlucky streak. He's well-liked in his remote fishing village and has a supportive spirit in hopeful young Manolin (Felipe Pazos Jr.), who wants to sail with "The Old Man" but is forbidden by his father. Desperate to catch a record-breaking marlin and bring meaning to his life, The Old Man embarks on a dangerous solo voyage and, much like Captain Ahab or the later Quint, bull-headed pursuit takes precedence over his own well-being. Yet the task itself, when or even if it's completed, comes with the added risk of returning home safely.

Certainly not intended to be a thrill-a-minute production, The Old Man and the Sea's mostly relaxed and even-handed pace gives it an unthreatening vibe even during its most dangerous and deadly moments. This sometimes works to the film's advantage but also creates a homogenous tone, less so from Tracy's on-screen persona than an overabundance of inner monologuing and narration by the celebrated actor. Rightly regarded as perhaps the most literal interpretation of a book ever committed to film (and one that the still-living author endorsed during its production and after seeing the finished product), The Old Man and the Sea nonetheless fails to establish a truly engaging atmosphere thanks to its regular use of obvious studio tank footage, a reliance on stock shots to fill in the fishing blanks, and of course the near-endless narration which works in some cases but often deflates much of the visually-generated tension.

Tracy's performance, admirable and well-intentioned as it is, might just be the best and worst thing about the film; he's as likable as ever, sure, but extreme suspension of belief is required to fully accept him as the novel's withering Cuban (really, their only identical traits are blue eyes), especially since almost every other element of Hemingway's novella is adapted so literally. Yet the pure strength of its source material -- as well as Dimitri Tiomkin's Oscar-winning original score and some of the more interesting visual effects, such as smeared opticals that represent dreamlike visions -- is still enough to let The Old Man and the Sea float gently by as a curious cinematic relic, not to mention a potentially nostalgic favorite for those with unassailable memories of this adaptation or the book it was based on.

The fact that The Old Man and the Sea sits in Warner Bros.' back catalogue is fortunate, then, because its patchwork source material -- riddled with overly grainy stock shots, white matte lines, and badly-faded color that looked awful on TV broadcasts -- has been given new life by Warner Archive's careful restorative touch. It's still not exactly the most consistently pretty film you're likely to see, but this is about as good as it'll ever look on home video.

The Old Man and the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

As mentioned above, The Old Man and the Sea has quite a lot of visual baggage that undoubtedly made it difficult to prepare for its Blu-ray debut. The mixture of on-location footage -- reportedly shot in Cuba, Peru, Panama, Nassau, and Hawaii -- and obvious studio sets (including the tank footage that makes up the bulk of The Old Man's solo voyage) are further broken up by sporadic stock inserts. This gives the film an unavoidably patchwork aesthetic that's been skillfully stitched together by Warner Archive's restoration, which included a new 4K scan of the original Warnercolor camera negative and careful manual cleanup. Its visual elements are still very distinct from one another: stock footage retains its heightened grain levels and the tank scenes still show white "halo" matte lines, for example, and in some cases even more so since the traditionally captured footage sports a renewed level of fine detail and vivid color saturation. Simply put, those who have only seen it on TV broadcasts or earlier home video editions such as Warner Bros. 2001 "snapper case" DVD will be floored at the improvements here, which rightfully don't polish every inch of the film to a consistently gleaming shine but still heighten its overall visual impact. As usual, the boutique label's disc encoding lets the show run at a supportively high bit rate with no signs of banding, posterization, or other compression artifacts.

The Old Man and the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Similarly restored from its original magnetic master, this split-channel DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mono mix does a fine job with The Old Man and the Sea's mostly straightforward source, which is so dominated by voice-over narration and added music cues that it was undoubtedly an easier clean-up job than the visuals. As such, Tracy's warm monologues and spoken dialogue sound clean and crisp, with added high-seas effects heightening the action often in tandem with Dimitri Tiomkin's Oscar-winning original score. No obvious signs of age-related wear-and-tear could be heard aside from a bit of straining on the high end, rounding out this lossless audio presentation as neatly as possible.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are offered during the main feature only, not the extras.

The Old Man and the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with vintage poster-themed artwork and no inserts of any kind. The bonus features are unsurprisingly slim and seem to be fully ported over from both previous DVD editions.

• "Hemingway: The Legend and the Sea" (3:04) - This brief collection of early production footage captured by filmmaker Allen H. Miner, originally planned for a longer documentary that was scrapped, sports a 1996 copyright date and is mentioned as having been "recently uncovered". In it, the filmmaker and other crew members are seen fishing in the Caribbean with Ernest Hemingway while the filmmaker speaks about his experience.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:43) - This storybook-style trailer features no footage of the film but nonetheless promotes it as a faithful adaptation of Hemingway's award-winning novella.

The Old Man and the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

John Sturges' The Old Man and the Sea, based quite literally on Ernest Hemingway's celebrated late-career novella, is something of an odd viewing experience that has the homogenous feel of a book-on-tape with accompanying visuals. That, combined with the borderline questionable casting of Spencer Tracy as a gaunt Cuban fisherman, all but demands a few mental adjustments to fully process and appreciate this clearly well-intentioned but ultimately uneven production. Warner Archive's Blu-ray makes the most of it, as usual, with another top-tier restoration that helps to smooth over its patchwork visual aesthetic while admirably staying true to the source. Much like their recent release of Angel Face, it's a recommended disc for established fans but newcomers may want to try before they buy.