40 Fun Facts About Captains Courageous

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar as the fisherman Manuel in the 1937 film Captains Courageous?

Spencer Tracy disliked faking the accent and having his hair curled for the part, yet it won him the first of two Best Actor Oscars in a row.

In Captains Courageous, spoiled Harvey Cheyne is swept into the Atlantic from what kind of vessel?

An ocean liner was carrying Harvey to Europe, and the novel opens with it rolling through fog, whistling to warn the fishing fleet.

In Captains Courageous, what gift from a fellow passenger leaves Harvey Cheyne sick at the rail?

A strong cigar, a rank Wheeling stogie offered by a German passenger, made Harvey faint just as a roll of the ship tipped him over the rail.

Manuel, Harvey's rescuer in Captains Courageous, comes from an island ruled by which country?

Portugal rules Madeira, the island Manuel calls home, and he tells the crew gentle stories of girls washing clothes there by moonlight.

The schooner that rescues Harvey in Captains Courageous spends its season catching which fish?

Cod was the whole point of the trip, and Kipling says the skipper found the shoals by thinking the way the fish did.

Who directed Captains Courageous two years before both The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind?

Victor Fleming won the Best Director Oscar for Gone with the Wind, and both of his 1939 films sit in the American Film Institute's top ten.

Unlike the novel, what happens to Manuel in the 1937 film Captains Courageous during the race home?

He drowns, tangled in the rigging of a snapped mast, a tear-jerking twist the screenwriters added; in the book Manuel is alive to be rewarded at the end.

What Biblical name do the crew in Captains Courageous give anyone or anything that spoils the luck?

A Jonah can be a man, a boy or even a bucket, the crew explain, and one hand swears a jinxed splitting-knife dogged him for two trips.

Which novel's hero is likened to the boy who falls off a boat in what must be Captains Courageous?

The Catcher in the Rye never names the picture, but Holden Caulfield is told he resembles the boy in a film with Melvyn Douglas, who played Harvey's father.

Which stern but fair schooner captain puts Harvey Cheyne to work in Captains Courageous?

Disko Troop gives Harvey a bloody nose for calling him a thief, then signs him on as second boy at ten and a half dollars a month.

Which port, self-styled America's oldest seaport, is home to the schooner in Captains Courageous?

Gloucester honours its lost fishermen with the Man at the Wheel statue, a bronze helmsman in oilskins raised beside the harbour in 1925.

Which foggy Atlantic fishing grounds give Captains Courageous its subtitle and most of its setting?

The Grand Banks are foggy for a reason: the cold Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream there, over some of the world's richest fishing grounds.

Which fishing schooner picks Harvey Cheyne out of the sea in Captains Courageous?

We're Here had a fine catch the day after hauling Harvey aboard, which Dan took as proof that the newcomer brought no bad luck.

Which future Andy Hardy star played the captain's son Dan in the 1937 film Captains Courageous?

Mickey Rooney first played Andy Hardy that same year, and by 1939 he was Hollywood's top box-office attraction.

Freddie Bartholomew, Harvey in the 1937 Captains Courageous, first found fame in which Dickens role?

David Copperfield brought the London-born Bartholomew to America at ten, and two years later he was billed above every adult in this cast.

Which future Mr. Potter of It's a Wonderful Life played the captain in 1937's Captains Courageous?

Lionel Barrymore already had a Best Actor Oscar of his own, for A Free Soul, when he took the wheel as the gruff skipper.

Which Streetcar Named Desire Oscar winner played the captain in 1977's TV film Captains Courageous?

Karl Malden led a version shot off the coast of Maine on a budget of $1.5 million, with the Kipling estate paid $25,000 for the rights.

Which future Fantasy Island host played Manuel in the 1977 TV film Captains Courageous?

Ricardo Montalbán made it the year he first welcomed guests as Mr. Roarke, five years before returning to Star Trek as Khan.

Which star of Spenser: For Hire played the captain in the 1996 TV film Captains Courageous?

Robert Urich said he wanted a film he could watch with his own children, and this version renamed his skipper Matthew.

Which Around the World in 80 Days director made the 1996 TV film Captains Courageous?

Michael Anderson made it more than forty years after The Dam Busters, his 1955 war film about the bouncing-bomb raid.

In Captains Courageous, Harvey Cheyne's multimillionaire father built his fortune chiefly on what?

Railroads came first, half a dozen of them, though the gossips aboard add mines, lumber and shipping to a fortune of thirty million dollars.

In Captains Courageous, Harvey's parents race to Boston by private train from which California city?

San Diego to Boston takes them 87 hours 35 minutes in their private car Constance, which is given right of way over 177 other trains.

How does Harvey tell his parents he is alive once the schooner reaches port in Captains Courageous?

By telegram, but only once the telegraph office opened; until then, Kipling writes, Harvey was perhaps the loneliest boy in all America.

What does the cook, credited with second sight, keep predicting about Harvey in Captains Courageous?

He will be Dan's master, the cook insists, and the last page bears him out: Dan is second mate on a ship of the Cheyne line.

In Captains Courageous, crewman Penn lost his memory after his family died in which real disaster?

The Johnstown Flood of 1889 killed more than 2,200 people when a dam burst, and Kipling made Penn a preacher who saw his wife and four children swept away.

In Captains Courageous, the crew tease the captain's brother Uncle Salters for really being what?

A farmer is what Dan calls him: there isn't water enough between there and Hatteras, he says, to wash the furrow-mould off his uncle's boots.

The cook from Cape Breton in Captains Courageous speaks which language as his mother tongue?

Gaelic is his natural tongue, the speech of inland Cape Breton, though the crew take it for homemade Scotch until Penn sets them right.

The captain in Captains Courageous was named after his icy birthplace, an island off which land?

Greenland is where his father's boat was iced in for a winter with his mother aboard, and the couple named their newborn after the place.

In Captains Courageous, the crew row out from the schooner each day in which flat-bottomed boats?

Dories nest one inside another on deck, like puzzle boxes as Dan puts it, which let a schooner carry a whole flock of them.

Which university is Harvey attending as Captains Courageous ends, before he joins the family firm?

Stanford gets a ribbing in the final scene, where Harvey tells Dan the college is nothing next to their old schooner.

In which New England state did Kipling write Captains Courageous, at a house he named Naulakha?

Vermont was home to his American wife's family, and the house he built still stands on Kipling Road, just north of Brattleboro.

Which Kipling classic was written during the same American stay that produced Captains Courageous?

The Jungle Book began in a snowbound cottage workroom just seven feet by eight, where the first Mowgli stories took shape.

A decade after Captains Courageous, Kipling became the first writer in English to win which honour?

The Nobel Prize in Literature reached him at 41; he turned down both a knighthood and the Poet Laureateship.

Which future US president praised Captains Courageous for showing just what a boy should be?

Theodore Roosevelt made the point in an essay for St. Nicholas magazine in 1900, a year before he became president.

Which American magazine began serialising Captains Courageous in 1896, before it appeared as a book?

McClure's ran the story in monthly instalments until May 1897 and later became known for pioneering muckraking journalism.

Captains Courageous is dedicated to James Conland, an ex-fisherman who by then worked as what?

A doctor in the Kiplings' town, Conland had sailed with the fishing fleet as a young man; Kipling said the writing was his part and the details Conland's.

Kipling took the title Captains Courageous from the first line of Mary Ambree, what kind of work?

An old English ballad about Mary Ambree, a woman who fought as a captain at Ghent in the 1580s, supplied the phrase, which Kipling had already used on a newspaper article.

Which Chris Elliott comedy about a snob stuck on a fishing boat was inspired by Captains Courageous?

Cabin Boy sank at the box office in 1994, earning $3.7 million against a $10 million budget, though Tim Burton was among its producers.

In what form did Captains Courageous reach a New York stage in 1999, with Treat Williams as Manuel?

A musical it was, staged Off Broadway, and Treat Williams won critical acclaim in the part that had earned a film Oscar back in 1937.

Charles Sheffield's The Billion Dollar Boy retells Captains Courageous in which unlikely genre?

Science fiction it is: Sheffield's spoiled rich teenager winds up by accident on a remote mining vessel in deep space and has to work to survive.