3 years ago

@rolivaw Yeah, definitely not one of the better scripts that Hepburn and Tracy had to work with, it played more like an exercise on how to use serial clichés to get out of doing any real writing. I'm always frustrated by how the character of the Greek orphan boy is tragically underused, too. Anyone who's seen Captains Courageous knows how well Spencer Tracy can portray a paternal role to a young child, and it would've been a far more redemptive character arc for Tess to have come back to be with both of them than just Sam alone. Perhaps that too is an artifact of the times, no doubt it would've been a hard sell to that orphanage had Sam wanted to be named the boy's sole legal guardian.<br /> <br /> In the end, the tragedy shown in the story almost perfectly mirrors the one experienced by the audiences who watch it: so much wasted potential, with no sense of what the true end of the story will be...