Moby Dick
by John Huston
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gregory Peck, Harry Andrews, James Robertson Justice, Leo Genn, Richard BasehartDirector: John Huston
Brand: PECK,GREGORY
Producer: John Huston
Writer: John Huston
Producer: Jack Clayton
Producer: Lee Katz
Writer: Herman Melville
Writer: Norman Corwin
Writer: Ray Bradbury
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Moby Dick
Movie Review: "Mighty like a whale"
Summary: 4 Stars
Melville's masterpiece, with its metaphysical speculations and moments of metatextual awareness, is practically unfilmable, but that hasn't stopped Hollywood from trying multiple times (including twice with John Barrymore as Ahab); this version directed by John Huston was one of its finest attempts. The film can best be understood as an visualization of a kind of Classic Comics version of the story, with most of the more difficult parts excised in favor of the adventure story. But it's an adventure story missing a protagonist; as in the novel, Ishmael (here played by Richard Basehart) absents himself for the most part after the fine introductory sequence, involving spectacular shots of New Bedford and its whalers and Father Mapple's sermon delivered with intelligence and fire by Orson Welles. Thereafter Gregory peck has to take over as Ahab, and though his characterization has been much mocked (most memorably by Pauline Kael), he's suitably demonic and has the look to him of an Old Testament patriarch. But the character can't really hold the film together. The best parts of the film are towards the end after the eponymous whale is finally sighted. At first, he appears only very partially and obscured by spray and foam; his appearance is uncannily presaged by the cawing and circling of gulls. When by the end he's racing through the surf smashing through whaleboats and ramming the Pequod with his bulk he really seems genuinely monstrous (the special effects are terrific especially considering they were done more than half a century ago). Even if the film doesn't wholly hold together, the effect is in the end so admirable you can;t help but salute it.
Summary of Moby Dick
The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captains self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale moby dick. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 08/20/2002 Starring: Gregory Peck Leo Genn Run time: 115 minutes Rating: Nr Director: John HustonThere are so many things right about this 1956 production of Moby Dick, it's a shame it is remembered for the one (debatable) thing wrong with it. As Captain Ahab, the bearded, one-legged, insanely obsessed whaler, Gregory Peck has often been called miscast. The mild, level-headed Peck had many talents, but the volcanic eruptions of Ahab seemed beyond him--even Peck himself felt he was a bad fit for the part after he finished playing it. (Pauline Kael opined that Peck looked like "a stock-company Lincoln.") Yet Peck's quiet brooding works an intriguing variation on the fiery character. John Huston, a director with a taste for location shooting, had his hands full with the difficult open-water filming in Ireland and the Canary Islands ("The catalogue of misadventures was unbelievable," he later wrote). Since Ahab is chasing the rare white whale, three false whales had to be constructed, two of which were lost at sea. For all the miscues, the film is amazingly controlled, and especially beautiful to look at: Huston and cinematographer Oswald Morris developed an unusual color process meant to suggest old whaling engravings. The director wrote the script with the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, an inspired choice to adapt Herman Melville's epic novel. Richard Basehart plays the narrator, Ishmael, and Orson Welles provides a wonderful single-scene role as Father Mapple, declaiming the mysteries of the sailor's life in a thundering sermon. --Robert Horton
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