User reviews

Anthony Quinn makes a much better Santiago than Spencer Tracey did, and director Jud Taylor and screenwriter Roger Hirson manage to make the right decisions regarding editing and plot, distilling Hemingway's simple, powerful, story to its fundamental human elements and adding elements of characterization which a more 'faithful' adaptation would have missed.

It is remarkable that this film was made for television broadcast. It sports a cast and a pedigree well above the typical TV movie of its time, and - with a little more budget - would have made a fine big screen film.

Santiago is an old man in a small fishing village in Cuba. Some of the local men feel that his failure to catch fish for the last 84 days has brought a curse on the village, and they long for his retirement. Others, including Santiago himself, simply believe that he has had a run of bad luck. Inspired by a young man who worships the kindly old fishermen, a respectful innkeeper, and indirectly, by the sympathetic sentiments of a foreign writer (Tom Pruitt played by Gary Cole) staying in the village, Santiago begins what may be his final voyage out to sea, in search of a big catch.

Hemingway's story is one of many where the great writer expounds on his unusually sensitive and intelligent views of masculine ideals. In this adaptation of The Old Man and the Sea, however, Hemingway's tendency to diminish female roles in order to make room for men - thankfully - does not come through. Instead, the production team decided to add relationships (such as Santiago and his daughter) which nicely embellish the development of the central character as a passionately independent man who nonetheless loves those around him despite their refusal to understand him (except for his protégé, the young fisherman). The film also nicely touches on issues of aging.

Tom Pruitt (Gary Cole), is - basically - Hemingway. And this character interprets the old man for us, but subtly, and only as he learns from the example the old man sets - never as an omniscient god-figure who creates and sees clearly. As such, Pruitt and his lover (Patricia Clarkson) reveal something intimate about Hemingway's famously tortured relationship with his craft.

The story is shot and edited exactly as it should have been, and the feeling of Hemingway's story is much better developed than in the previous Oscar winning Spencer Tracey version. This is true despite the fact that Taylor's film strays much further from the original Hemingway story.

The film depicts a man struggling with the sea, a crisis of self-confidence, and accusations of uselessness - but who never once loses sight of his prospects and inner strength. The dignity of the character is very admirable, and Anthony Quinn's performance is mesmerizing. Quinn pours his soul into Santiago - and it is clear that the great actor understood his character perfectly. Excellent support is provided by Patricia Clarkson and a very good but largely unknown Latin American cast) Unfortunately, Gary Cole's portrayal of Hemingway is not one of his better efforts and some of his scenes are unconvincing.

Recommended for Hemingway and Quinn fans - but not for purists. Recommended for patient fans of human drama. Not recommended for people with limited attention spans.

Not much actually happens in this movie: an old man Santiago (Anthony Quinn) has not caught a fish in over eighty trips, goes out for one last trip and catches a huge fish. By doing so, he discovers, perhaps for the first time, the insignificance of human beings in the overall scheme of things. It is a testament to Anthony Quinn's performance in the central role that our interest is sustained; his range of facial expressions is positively wondrous, especially when alone on the boat with no one but himself to talk to. Director Jud Taylor also works hard to develop the spring-and-autumn relationship between Santiago and the boy Anderez (Paul Calderon), which prompts the old man to consider his own behavior as an old men when he believed that he was virtually impregnable. The story has a Hemingwayesque figure in the form of Tom Pruitt (Gary Cole), a writer who cannot leave Santiago's small community until he has discovered for himself just what motivates the old man. This role is a little superfluous, but at least shows why the author himself was interested in such an apparently insignificant story.

The Ernest Hemmingway story is too short to go into detail without revealing the surprises; however, it is about (you guessed it) an old fisherman, who should be over the hill, going out to sea from Cuba to catch fish. He has 84 days of bad luck and with any luck, this is about to change (or is it?)

While the book can drag and be a tad redundant; this film adaptation puts life into the story. It is almost as if the story was written for Quinn. I have no intention of calling this a remake.

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) requested his part as a birthday present (he's 75th) from his producer.

Anthony Quinn ... Santiago Gary Cole ... Tom Pruitt Patricia Clarkson ... Mary Pruitt Joe Santos ... Lopez Valentina Quinn ... Angela Francesco Quinn ... Santiago as a Young Man Paul Calderon ... Anderez

Notice a few more Quinn's?

This was not a film worthy of Tony Quinn. It pales when compared with the Spencer Tracy version. The Quinn effort did not follow the book except a little. People were brought in for some unknown reason who were not in the book and didn't add anything to the story line. The original was a LOT better and followed the book almost to the letter. I realize that the original version was become hard to find, but I bet a look on ebay, Google, or Amazon would turn up a copy. I think that you would really enjoy it. I have a copy of the original Spenser Tracy version and plan to watch it with the book in hand to see how close it is to the book

If I weren't honoring Anthony Quinn as Hot Toasty Rag's Star of the Week, I never would have sat through The Old Man and the Sea. As it was, I had to give myself a manicure and a pedicure while watching it just to save my sanity by not giving the movie my full attention.

I'm not really a Hemingway fan anyway, and this story is far from my favorite. In it, an old man goes out to sea to try and catch a fish, even though everyone tells him he's too old. He's out there for months, waiting to catch a fish, talking to himself and annoying the pants off the audience. As a side plot, that I supposed was written to help audiences not start screaming-but for me, it had the opposite effect-Gary Cole and Patricia Clarkson are on-again, off-again lovers in town who sometimes talk about Anthony Quinn's futile boat trip but mostly talk about their very boring struggle between needing to find themselves and wanting to stay together. Gary just didn't know what to do with the terrible lines he was given, and Patricia did her usual delivery of, "In using an annoying monotone, I'm actually showing how profound these words are." Then of course, there's the young boy, Alexis Cruz, who idolizes and believes in Anthony Quinn, even though he really has no reason to.

If you actually like this story, feel free to disregard my review. Perhaps this is a very well done version, but since I can't stand it, it drove me crazy. I didn't like Moby Dick either. I preferred All is Lost. There's much better acting, hardly any talking, and no irritating side plots.

The 1990 version of The Old Man and the Sea is a movie you shouldn't see if you didn't read the book. I watched this movie in my high school English class, and I actually found the book pretty good. When I watched the movie I was really disappointed in what I saw. It had poor graphic quality and most of the cast acted very badly. This movie made me lose all my interest in the book. WARNING SPOLLERS!!! The movie was similar to the book in the way that it put everything in order from beginning to end, with very few things changed. But the main part that was changed is that in the movie Ernest Hemingway's character was in it. He played his role but he was pathetic and ever so false. To me the only character that acted like he was supposed to was Anthony Quinn, but everyone else really sucked. This movie, though similar to the book was very stupid in my opinion. If you are planning to show it for class I recommend that you don't. In all honesty I enjoyed reading the book more than I did watch the movie. It was so boring I almost cried. I wish it wasn't true but the acting just put me to sleep. It was really old fashion and it looked really false. If you were hoping to watch this movie for clarifications, don't, it will just get you really lost. Feel free to watch the movie and disprove me if you want this is just my own opinion. But if you're disappointed at what you see don't say I didn't warn you. I give this movie 3 out of 10. Read the book it's a lot better than the movie.

I never read the book until I was in my 60's. Hemingway did an excellent writing of the book. I next watched the 1990 version of the movie with Anthony Quinn. He did a fantastic job along with the writers. Books and movies aren't made like these classics. If you haven't read the book, or even watched the 1990 version or the 60's version with Spencer Tracy, you should treat yourself to it. I also have listened to the audiobook version with Donald Sutherland as narrator. I believe the 1990 version with Quinn is the more realistic version since he is Mexican-American and his version is more like Hemingway's Old Man. Treat yourself with this book/movie.

Warning: Movie Details revealed:

I'm a freshmen student who watched the movie Old Man And The Sea I think the movie's graphics weren't all that good. The plot was good, but the graphics were horrible. Every thing looked fake, especially the marlin. Other than that the movie was good. They didn't make many changes, and the changes they did make, made the movie better not worse. The actors did their job pretty good and they were convincing. For example when the old man was out to sea looking for the fish and talking to himself he was saying things with a lot of feeling. Or the part when he was saying that he had to kill the fish even though he loved it and respected it. Then when he was asking himself if it was right to kill the fish he put enough real emotion in there to convince the person watching that he was actually there. The actors looked like I imagined they would look. Except one, the daughter Angela. They stuck to the book and how they said stuff and what they said so it was actually a good book in terms of the plot, if you can get over the fake graphics than it's a fairly good movie.

I saw the movie The Old Man and the Sea in school after my class read the book. I did not really like the movie because some of the actors couldn't act at all. For example, the woman that played Angela was a bad actress that made the movie look even worse than it already was. The woman Angela also looked a lot like a man instead of a woman. The movie was very different from the book because the movie was way shorter. In the book the old man Santiago didn't have a daughter but in the movie he did. Ernest Hemingway was not mentioned in the book as an actor. In the story it was sad when Santiago arrived back on land and he went to his shack; the boy come to the shack to see if he had arrived back home. But then again in the movie Santiago arrived in his boat with the fish tied to the side and people were gathering around and telling him what a magnificent fish he caught. The islanders then said that all of his bad luck was gone because he had caught such a fish in the 85th day. During the movie parts were missing that should have been there. That just made me not like the movie that much more. The new parts added to the movie didn't add to the meaning of the story because it had kind of the same meaning even without the new parts. In a way the movie kind of helped me understand the book a little better because I got to really get a good picture of all the surroundings and the feel of the book. For some parts of the book that was hard for me to picture in my head I was able to understand what the book was trying to explain and make me see.

You might have heard of the movie or story call 'The Old Man and the Sea'. I read and saw the movie in high school. The book was all right but it had different things from the movie. I personally didn't like the movie because I think that is was boring and that it didn't have as much detail as the book had. Another reason why I didn't like the movie was because the effects here kind of dumb. The movie was different from the book because in the book the author includes a lot of details that the movie never had. For example in the book, Santiago was really fighting for the fish, in the movie it look so easy. The movie would be better if it had more details. Another is that Santiago never had a daughter, in the movie he did and she was a real bad character. I think she doesn't know how to act good because of the things she said and do. Another thing was that in the movie the old man thinks back of his wife. In the book he didn't really had no family only the boy. The new things didn't mean anything because the daughter was just like any friend to him she didn't believe on him like the boy did. For the wife I think it was nothing because I think he didn't care for her like he cares for the boy. The movie helps a little but I think that with more detail and taking out the new parts will help a lot. Well this is all I could really tell you. I think that from a 1 to 10 I will give like a 4. Another thing I want to tell you is that it will be better to read the book.

I watched the Old Man and the Sea at school for English and I thought it was okay. The plot seems real enough but there is fault in the characters. I read the book and expected that they would make changes, so finding that the old man had a daughter was not a shock to me, but her bad acting contributed to reason this movie was not such a hit. Also Santiago was supposed to be Cuban yet this actor's accent was horrible and he wasn't Cuban. I even heard that he was a famous actor back then and that is why he got the part. Some of the flashbacks were also not in the book which I understand but some had nothing to do with the plot of the story. Santiago was supposed to dream of lions on the beach but instead he dreams of his youth. There were also some good points though, the actor who played Santiago was very good and so was the boy also adding the author of the book into the movie was genius. The big blue marlin at some point looked fake, and the background of the sea, also fake. The scenery of the beach was beautiful though, and it kind of reminded me of my home country. In book and movie, Santiago shows the endurance courage and compassion for the fishes he catches and that is probably what drew people to watch it the first time but know it is not all that popular anymore and would not be a good choice to pick if you wanted to see a good movie. For ratings I would give this movie a four out of ten for good effort even though it really did suck.