Having read Hermann Melville's brilliant novel when I was fourteen I was naturally hoping for great things from this movie. Unfortunately, it does not deliver on any level. The film is too slow and takes too long to get going, while the script should have been shorn of some of the novel's prose to give it some life. However, what really lets it down is the complete miscasting of the two leads. Richard Basehart, aged 40 but looking older, was clearly far too old to play the youngster Ishmael. An actor under thirty like Stanley Baker would have made an excellent choice. Far worse though is the casting of Gregory Peck as Ahab. Not only was Peck much too young for the part (Ahab was 58 in the novel), he simply didn't have the requisite talent to play a deranged villain convincingly. If only a better, older actor had been cast like Fredric March, Spencer Tracy or even the director John Huston himself. Orson Welles comes of best in the cameo role of Father Mapple.
Worth watching, but certainly no classic.
Worth watching, but certainly no classic.