Moby Dick (1956)
Moby Dick (1956)
Member's Rating
  • Currently 4/5} Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Rate this movie

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rent this DVD
Synopsis Cast & Crew Technical

Synopsis

John Huston directs Herman Melville's classic tale of a large, albino, water-based mammal and the obsessive sea captain with one real leg. The script is by Ray Bradbury. Gregory Peck stars as Ahab, Richard Basehart is the lucky Ishmael. Other crew members of the Pequod include Leo Genn, Harry Andrews and Frederick Ledebur as Queequeg. Three white whales were used in the filming off the coast of Ireland; two were lost at sea and still frighten the locals. John Huston---USA/Great Britain---1956---116 mins.

See More Like This  |  Review This Disc  |  Recommend to a Friend  |  Rent Me

Reviews of 'Moby Dick (1956)'

Write Your Own Online Review
1 Customer Review  |  See All Customer Reviews

Most Recent Reviews
Here is a list of the most recently submitted reviews for this movie.

  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
   | Lewis#4

A proper appreciation of this 1956 John Huston film requires the acceptance of a certain ponderous tone carried over from its literary source. Not only does the screenplay, by Huston and Ray Bradbury, make ample use of Melville’s own words (“Call Me Ishmael”), it also adopts the sense and feel of the novel, the heavy symbolism, the theological resonance. In the theater we accept the convention of “fine language” and set speeches. In the more naturalistic medium of cinema we expect exchanges that are more realistic. The secret then to appreciating this movie is to view it almost as a filmed play, an unabashedly literary take on a great, perhaps THE great, American novel. This requires a readjustment to pre-Method acting styles as well as a willful forgetting of fifty years of caricature. One must forget, for example, that Royal Dano’s brief appearance as the prognosticating lunatic Elijah--of course he would be named Elijah--lives on in a “Family Guy” character, a wooden limbed ancient mariner given to theatrically dire admonitions. With this adjustment though comes an appreciation of the film’s purely cinematic strengths, the positioning of the camera, the artfully modulated color scheme, the skillful evocation of a time when ships were wooden ships and men iron men. Many excellent critics, including my wife, find that Gregory Peck is miscast as the austere and obsessive Ahab. I don’t agree, but his approach to the part--he begins quietly and lets the mania build--may not be to everyone’s taste.

I found this review: