Spencer Tracy does his best Chico/Harpo Marx Impression

I couldn't agree more. The first time I saw this film, many years ago, I was eagerly anticipating seeing a classic film, but in the end I didn't enjoy it at all. This was mainly, but not only, due to Spencer Tracy's terrible performance (and accent). I'm generally a big fan of old films and think it's a shame that they are much less seen than many of them merit, but this one just didn't do it for me. I simply don't understand why people love this film and Tracy in it, but I'm sure there are favourites of mine that people don't get! However, I was interested to find someone who had the same opinion as me!

In another thread two different and unrelated Portuguese speakers commend Mr. Tracy's accent and his speaking of Portuguese.

I bought into the character.

The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

Thought he was completely believable

This is both a high seas adventure and a morality play concerning the redemption of a "poor rich kid" and his distant, workaholic father. I didn't watch it for the anal retentive purposes of critiquing the authenticity, or lack thereof, of Tracy's role as a Portuguese fisherman; nor is it the likely motivation for the 1937 filmgoers who made this movie a box office success.

Just let it go. You could pick apart anything, but anything, but ANYTHING.

Bottom line, though, is that Tracy took home "the Little Statue" while neither myself nor you, in all likelihood, ever have or ever will achieve the recognition of peers and colleagues in the acting profession (calling to mind that old chestnut, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; and those who can do neither, become critics.")