List Price: $14.98You Pay Only: $12.99 You Save: $1.99 (13%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Koch International
EAN: 9781417231485
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 1417231483
Label: KOCH VISION
Manufacturer: KOCH VISION
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: KOCH VISION
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 12, 2005
Running Time: 93 minutes
Sales Rank: 13258
Studio: KOCH VISION
Theatrical Release Date: March 25, 1990
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Editorial Review:
Description: The heroic saga of Santiago, in his prime the greatest fisherman of them all and now 84 days without a catch. The villagers claim he’s too old – he has 'lost his luck.' His daughter thinks he should give up the sea and live with her in Havana.
Determined to prove them wrong by bringing back a magnificent catch, Santiago goes out to sea. Farther out than ever before. Out to the battle of his life.
The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway’s 'signature' novel won a Pulitzer Prize and was specifically cited when he won the Nobel Prize in literature.
Amazon.com: It takes courage for any actor to fill shoes previously worn by Spencer Tracy, but no one could accuse fellow two-time Oscar® winner Anthony Quinn of cowardice. It was, in fact, a longtime goal of the Mexican-born actor to take on the role of Ernest Hemingway's luckless fisherman Santiago. It would be churlish to suggest that he bests Tracy (who received an Oscar nod for his performance), but there's little doubt that Quinn, in his 70s at the time (Tracy was in his 50s in 1958), looks and sounds more right for the part. This 1990 telefilm is also a family affair as Quinn's daughter, Valentina, portrays Santiago's concerned daughter and his son, Francesco, portrays the Cuban as a scrappy young man. Gary Cole and Patricia Clarkson provide strong support as an American couple who take inspiration from Santiago's quest to catch just one fish after an 84-day dry spell. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Elusive Prey
Hemingway's deceptively simple story of an old, out of luck Cuban fisherman's encounter with a marlin is elusive prey for the cinema. Contrary to popular opinion, the first film version with Spencer Tracy isn't that hot, and has a gassy ponderousness and air of fakery about it. Anthony Quinn is more freshly true and this little film also has great close up marlin footage as a compensation. Overall it is not only more authentic, both as to the fish and as to the Cuban setting, but also lighter and brighter. Frankly Quinn beats Tracy by a country mile; he isn't some white liberal worrying about portraying a Cubano with dignity, and gives you a well-rounded performance which admits the character's faults and a certain tendancy to be out of his head. That makes his quest believable and not simply fantastic. Hemingway did actually pick this story up out of real life, but any writer knows that such fact is harder to handle than fiction.
Alas, the film has a few other faults such as poor (old TV) film quality, plus a distracting subplot with a Hemingwayesque writer figure. Yeah, the shot of the old man superimposed with the marlin is funny, but at least has the excuse of being near impossible to avoid. There is no excuse for turning a full moon at sea into a giant searchlight worthy of a prison camp. And then they avoid a great highlight of the book--the night scenes with the sharks!
The subplot is the main problem though. It doesn't finally kill the story, but anyone ... Read More
Rating: - Anthony Quinn brings the story to life
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, that 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.
Anthony Quinn requested his part as a birthday present (his 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
The Old Man and the Sea
Rating: - Forget this version
If you loved the Spencer Tracy version, this will be a great disappointment. Quinn turns in a respectable performance, but it is wooden compared to the Tracy version. The story is also muddled by the repeated insertion of Hemingway himself supposedly observing the story unfold, and then to later write it up. Bottom line, save your money
Rating: - Anthony Quinn at his finest...
I have recently listened to The Old Man and The Sea read by Donald Sutherland. It is an excellent reading. Anthony Quinn's acting is superb and he perfectly plays Santiago, The Old Man. The boy is done finely too. There are elements added that are not in the book per se, but they do not detract from the power of this story of the courage and perserverence of The Old Man. This is truly a 5-star video...
Rating: - English teacher gives this DVD a "B"
Making a movie of some guy fishing for three days appealing to an audience of high school kids is a daunting task. Hemingway's "Old Man" isn't exactly full of action, but kids liked reading the novella mainly because they identified with Santiago's ruminations about life and not being defeated by it. This facet of the story is wonderfully presented by Anthony Quinn in a masterful performance as Santiago.
A nice touch to the story (and one that was lost on most of my students) was including Hemingway as a character in the movie: an unnamed newspaper writer on vacation with his wife and who wants to tell the story of Santiago's struggle. Also some of the effects seem dated (The marlin leaping up in the air looked like it was projected behind Anthony Quinn), and some students laughed at the production values of this 15 year old movie.
That said, most students actually enjoyed seeing the movie, and I think it was presented well and well acted. A good supplement to reading the novella in class.
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