Moby Dick (1956)
Stunning low key color, remarkable special effects, a stern Gregory Peck as Ahab, and a cast of ruffians and odd characters from the world 'round. This is about as good as you can do with the novel, which is huge and which depends often on long passages of brilliant writing. Some of the monologues are here, and they are a high point of the script.
The tale is amazing, filled with metaphors of man's free will, his relationship to God and Nature, his duty to captain and to self, and his fighting for survival. It's also about legends and myth, and it transports us to a time mostly gone where the seas were more mystery than mere vastness. Everything is done by hand, and one pleasure of the movie is seeing an accurate depiction of the times, and the industry.
You do wonder now and then why the movie isn't even better. Why doesn't it really shake you to the bones, or make you question the meaning of life, or get weepy for the whale? Maybe it's because the language and the ideals are 150 years old. Times do change. The currents are the same, the big ones, but they get put forward (and illustrated) in a way that feels, well, illustrative. Allegorical. Which is terrific, but something less palpable. Interesting to see Ray Bradbury helping Huston with the adaptation.
I also don't know how to view Peck's job as Ahab. There is something perfect about him, very consistent, and strong (and that voice). But maybe Ahab was a little scarier and more mysterious than this (that's my memory from the book). Ahab was not just large, in life, but larger than life. Like the whale.
A remarkable effort, for sure. John Huston's manly ethic finds a perfect palette here. And without Bogart, but with a small part for a Walter Brennan-like bit actor Royal Dano, and great sermon by Orson Welles.
Stunning low key color, remarkable special effects, a stern Gregory Peck as Ahab, and a cast of ruffians and odd characters from the world 'round. This is about as good as you can do with the novel, which is huge and which depends often on long passages of brilliant writing. Some of the monologues are here, and they are a high point of the script.
The tale is amazing, filled with metaphors of man's free will, his relationship to God and Nature, his duty to captain and to self, and his fighting for survival. It's also about legends and myth, and it transports us to a time mostly gone where the seas were more mystery than mere vastness. Everything is done by hand, and one pleasure of the movie is seeing an accurate depiction of the times, and the industry.
You do wonder now and then why the movie isn't even better. Why doesn't it really shake you to the bones, or make you question the meaning of life, or get weepy for the whale? Maybe it's because the language and the ideals are 150 years old. Times do change. The currents are the same, the big ones, but they get put forward (and illustrated) in a way that feels, well, illustrative. Allegorical. Which is terrific, but something less palpable. Interesting to see Ray Bradbury helping Huston with the adaptation.
I also don't know how to view Peck's job as Ahab. There is something perfect about him, very consistent, and strong (and that voice). But maybe Ahab was a little scarier and more mysterious than this (that's my memory from the book). Ahab was not just large, in life, but larger than life. Like the whale.
A remarkable effort, for sure. John Huston's manly ethic finds a perfect palette here. And without Bogart, but with a small part for a Walter Brennan-like bit actor Royal Dano, and great sermon by Orson Welles.