Moby Dick

 

Moby Dick 1956

• Director: John Huston
• Seen by this director: Prizzi’s Honour, The Man Who Would Be King, The Night of the Iguana, The Misfits, Moulin Rouge, The African Queen, The Unforgiven, The Asphalt Jungle
• Based on the novel by Herman Melville
• Cast: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, Friedrich Ledebur, Orson Welles, Tamba Allen
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Gregory Peck – To Kill a Mockingbird, The Guns of Navarone, On the Beach, David and Bathsheba, Spellbound
• Richard Basehart – various TV series
• Orson Welles – The Voyage of the Damned, Catch 22, Casino Royale, Touch of Evil, The Long Hot Summer, Chimes at Midnight, Citizen Kane
• Why? The book
• Seen: 12 June 2021      

       When this film came out, I was five or six years old. I finally read the book at the age of forty-nine. It was required reading in a class on the American novel at Stockholm University where I was getting my second and third university degrees in preparation for becoming a teacher. The novel put me to sleep and gripped me with excited fascination in turn.

       You know the story. It’s about whales. And Captain Ahab. And Moby Dick. If you haven’t read it, do. It’s worth the effort.

       So, the film. How in the world have they squished this incredibly complex, philosophical, existential and adventurous book into less than two hours, even with Ray Bradbury as a screenwriter?

       Like the book, it puts me to sleep (almost) and impresses me in turn. And it’s so clear that the film did not do the book justice (no film could). Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab is stiff and hammy – he could and did so much better in other films. Richard Basehart is entirely wrong for Ishmael, being too old, too handsome with slicked back hair just like my dad had in the 50s. He neither looked nor acted anything like a youthful whaler from the 1840s. Ledebur is entirely too white to even come close to Queecquog’s character. It’s also painful to watch the mass murder of whales even with the knowledge of the historical significance of whaling, or maybe because of it.

       Still, it was a noble enough attempt. The photography is beautiful and the storms and battles with Moby Dick are dramatic. But is it the ‘best American film ever’ as the New York Herald Tribune apparently deemed it? Not even close.   

3* of 5