Captains Courageous
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Captains Courageous is an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling.
The plot follows the adventures of Harvey Chaney Jr., the arrogant and spoiled son of a railroad tycoon. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen on the Grand Banks, Harvey cannot persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince them of his wealth. However, the Captain of the We're Here, Disko Troop, offers him a job as part of the crew until they return to port. With no other choice, Harvey accepts.
There follows a series of trials and adventures where the boy learns to adjust to his rough new life, and with the help of his friend, Dan Troop, he makes fine progress. Eventually, the schooner returns to port and Harvey wires his parents. They rush to the fishing town and find to their amazement that their child has become an industrious, serious and considerate young man.
In 1937 Louis D. Lighton produced a movie based on the novel, directed by Victor Fleming. Spencer Tracy won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in this film. The cast also included Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore, Melvyn Douglas, Mickey Rooney, and John Carradine.
The movie also gained nominations for three other Academy Awards:
- Best Picture - Louis D. Lighton, producer
- Best Film Editing - Elmo Veron
- Best Writing, Screenplay - Marc Connelly, John Lee Mahin and Dale Van Every
The book contains very much non-standard English spelling used to represent dialect speech in conversations.
It contains some obsolete word usages, for example "trawl" used to mean "long-lining".