Ernest Hemingway's popular novella which probably helped him win the Nobel Prize in literature was purchased by Warner Brothers studio. Classy film director Fred Zinnemann was hired to turn it into a prestige film. A very miscast Spencer Tracy played the "old man." Then everything went wrong. Hemingway was hired to catch a marlin and that never happened. The sea wasn't very hospitable to filming in Havana and decision was made to film in a tank with a plastic fish on a sound stage. A frustrated Zinnemann quit the production.
John Sturges was hired to complete the film, and it's probably a miracle that he actually finished it. How's the end product? Well considered all the problems and compromises made, not that bad.
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