John Huston's (1906-1986)

Moby Dick

(1956)

from the novel by Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Screenplay by Ray Bradbury and John Huston

Starring

Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab

Richard Basehart as Ishmael—the Fool in Federic Fellini's La Strada

Mates of the Pequod:

Leo Genn as Starbuck (First Mate)—the Constable of France in Laurence Olivier's Henry V

Harry Andrews as Stubb (Second Mate)—Grand Duke Ivan in Nicholas and Alexandra

Seamus Kelly as Flask (Third Mate)

The Pequod's harpooneers:

Friedrich Ledebur as Queequeg the Polynesian harpooneer

Edric Connor as Daggoo the African harpooneer

Tom Clegg as Tashtego the Native American harpooneer

Other crew of the Pequod:

Bernard Miles as the Manxman (i.e., a sailor from the Isle of Man)—Joe Gargery the blacksmith in David Lean's Great Expectations

Noel Purcell as the Ship's Carpenter

Tamba Allenby as Pip the Cabin Boy

On shore:

Joseph Tomelty as Peter Coffin the innkeeper of the Spouter Inn (his voice is dubbed by the director)

Mervyn Johns as Captain Peleg, part owner of the Pequod

Philip Stainton as Captain Bildad, part owner of the Pequod

Orson Welles as Father Mapple

Royal Dano as Elijah the Prophet—often played villainous henchmen in westerns

Encountered at sea:

James Robertson Justice as Captain Boomer of the Samuel Enderby—Bashta the architect in Howard Hawks' Land of the Pharaohs and Quint the bosun in Captain Horatio Hornblower

Francis De Wolff as Captain Gardiner of the Rachel

Music by Philip Sainton

Photographed in Technicolor by Oswald Morris, B.S.C.

Special Technicolor Process designed by Oswald Morris and John Huston

Edited by Russell Lloyd

Production Designed by Geoffrey and Stephen Drake

Special Effects by Augie Lohman, George Blackwell, Robert Clarke, and Charles E. Parker

Produced and directed by John Huston. A Moulin Production distributed by Warner Brothers.

Moby-Dick was published first in London in 1851 as The Whale, omitting the one-page epilog which reveals who survived at the end of the novel. Melville was then a popular, financially-successful, and critically acclaimed author of the quasi-autobiographical novels Typee, Omoo, and White Jacket, but critical reception to The Whale in Britain was extremely negative. Critics disliked the unconventional juxtaposition of different narrative styles, which vary from chapter to chapter as the book progresses, as well as the lack of plot resolution due to the missing epilog. One legitimate criticism of The Whale amounted to the observation that if no one survived the end of the story, how could so much of it be presented as eyewitness narrative. Although the American edition, published later in 1851, restored the missing epilog, most American critics seem to have taken their cue from the already-published British reviews. It is also clear that some contemporary reviewers read the British reviews, but did not bother to read the novel.

Moby-Dick is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorn, author of The House of Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter. He read the original manuscript and encouraged Melville to expand a straight-forward adventure tale with numerous philosophical speculation on the nature of existence, the relationship between God and man, good and evil, and the enormous accumulated technical lore on whales and whaling. The novel was a financial disaster for Melville and his publishers, and his career and critical reputation never recovered, at least not until after his death. The highly unconventional structure, in which a conventional single narrator is established, then intermittently abandoned and returned to, still makes this a difficult book to appreciate. Chapters appear seemingly at random, presenting what purport to be actual dialogues among various characters, and eventually it becomes obvious that Ishmael could not have witnessed all the events he is presumably relating, with some of the dialogues turning out to be imaginary and internal, though in whose mind remains open to speculation. In addition, numerous chapters present digressive background information in a style that often indicates they are being related by Ishmael, but other chapters outside the narrative clearly are not related by Ishmael. Some chapters relate events which may be imaginary or thoughts of others which may be imagined by Ishmael or others. Even today, the only major novels with such experimental stream-of-consciousness structures are Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-69), which may have influenced Melville, and James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy (1930-1936) which may have been influenced by him. Melville and Moby-Dick were rediscovered in the 1920s, and their stature and place in American letters dates to this time, the Melville revival.

John Huston wanted to film Moby Dick for many years, but was unable to arrange financing. His intention was to cast as Captain Ahab his father Walter Huston, star of William Wyler's Dodsworth (1936 Goldwyn), from the novel by Sinclair Lewis, and John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948 RKO), from the novel by the mysterious B. Traven. Treasure of the Sierra Madre was nominated for best picture of 1948, but lost to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. John Huston won best director and best adapted screenplay, and his father won best supporting actor. Treasure also features notable performances from Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, and Alfonso Bedoya. Unfortunately, Walter Huston died in 1950 shortly after completing Anthony Mann's The Furies with Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey.

John Huston had already made The Maltese Falcon (1941) starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, Key Largo (1948) starring Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson, The African Queen (1951) with Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, and Moulin Rouge (1952) starring Jose Ferrar as the artist Toulose-Lautrec. He was one of the most accomplished and respected directors in the industry, and often wrote his own screenplays. To get partial financing from Warner Brothers, Huston had to accept a marquee actor as Captain Ahab. Gregory Peck's performance is still criticized by some, but for many, it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Nevertheless, everyone in this film gives one of the finest performances of their career. Orson Welles, who plays the clergyman Father Mapple, had written and produced stage and radio adaptations of parts of the novel.

The screenplay by respected science-fiction author Ray Bradbury condenses one of the most profound and convoluted novels in history into a straightforward action-adventure, while retaining a remarkable portion of the novel's philosophical depth and as much of Melville's original language as possible. Bradbury already enjoyed a substantial following of his own, with his short story "The Foghorn" having been filmed as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and his novels The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 already bestsellers which were later filmed.

Many scenes and narrative digressions from the novel are simply deleted. In the novel, Ishmael and Queequeg meet in New Bedford, but travel to Nantucket before they join the crew of the Pequod. In the film, the Pequod sails straight from New Bedford which gets the action started much faster. The crew of the Pequod are introduced carousing in the Spouter Inn and attending services in the Whalers' Church. In the novel, it is the crew of the Grampus Ishmael observes in the Inn, and only Queequeg accompanies him to Father Mapple's service. The mysterious character of Fedallah, Captain Ahab's harpooneer, is completely absent from the film. His prophecies to Ahab near the end of the novel are minimized and given to Elijah, who speaks only to Ishmael and Queequeg, before they embark. This happens much earlier in the film than it does in the book, something which works well only because the film is so much shorter than the novel. As in the novel, the crew of the Pequod remains a microcosm of humanity.

The episode of the Ecuadoran doubloon Ahab offers as a reward to the lookout who first sights Moby Dick is somewhat garbled because the story is so telescoped. In the novel, there is an important chapter where various characters, including Ahab, speculate on the meaning of the gold ounce without speaking to one another. Ahab claims the coin himself when he is first to spot the quarry, and the novel ends a few chapters later. In the film, the coin is awarded much earlier to one of the lookouts, and then Moby Dick gets away, returning near the end after a lengthy pursuit. In the novel, Moby Dick is not actually spotted until the last three chapters, and Ahab is always the first to see him before each day's chase. He claims the doubloon, but never collects it.

The scene where Queequeg divines his own death is invented for the film. In the novel, he contracts a fever emptying oil casks from the hold to find a leak, and orders a coffin made because he expects to die. The crew give him a mock funeral once they realize he is not dying. He is not cut while in a trance, as depicted in the film, though there is a reference to his being scarified as part of the tattooing process. An incipient knife fight between an unnamed Spanish crewman and the harpooner Dagoo is depicted in the novel, but is interrupted by a squall which requires the crew to climb the rigging to shorten sail.

The film ludicrously depicts Captain Ahab refusing to shorten sail during a typhoon. Though it makes for a highly dramatic episode in the film, this would have certainly resulted in the Pequod's destruction. In the novel the ship rides before the storm with shortened sails. A real sailor like Melville would never imagine any other course of action, even if the captain might be mentally unbalanced. The Pequod is inaccurately depicted as a full-rigged ship, though whalers were always rigged as barks. This is not mentioned in the novel because it was so well-known Melville probably thought it could be taken for granted.

Whale oil was then such a valuable commodity that the U.S. whaling fleet, which was then the world's largest, numbered over 300 ships. A scene where the three mates discuss relieving the captain seems modeled after a similar scene in Edward Dmytryk's The Caine Mutiny (1954 Columbia). Their discussion is taken from a narrative assessment Ishmael makes internally, but never verbalizes. Two chapters, both called "Knights and Squires," are devoted to descriptions of the mates and harpooneers. Richard Basehart as Ishmael narrates brief descriptions of each, but only the descriptions of Starbuck and Queequeg are faithful to the book.

Descriptions of Tashtego and Dagoo are changed to stereotypical Indian and African warriors, and Tashtego, from Gay Head in Nantucket, whose people were, along with the Inuit, the first North Americans to hunt whales, is made a Plains Indian. Pip the Cabin Boy is described in the screenplay as being from Alabama, but in the novel he is from Connecticut. He is only twelve, and in the book he loses his mind after twice jumping out of a whaleboat and being lost for nearly a full day. Ahab adopts him and has him live in his cabin, questioning whether his ravings might be prophecies.

A late scene based on the chapter "The Symphony," skillfully encapsulates a conversation between Starbuck and Ahab, but inventively includes Starbucks unuttered thoughts from an earlier chapter where he contemplates killing the captain, and some of Ahab's lines from one of the three "The Chase" chapters. One element largely absent from the screenplay is the humor which permeates a good portion of the novel and makes Ishmael such a memorable character.

Because the Parsee (normally spelled Parsi today, a Zoroastrian from India) harpooneer Fedallah is written out of the screenplay, his death on the first day of the chase is later made the manner of Captain Ahab's, and his prophecies are changed and given to Elijah. This enables Ahab to deliver the famous monologue, "…from hell's heart I stab at thee, for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee, thou damned whale!" in the most direct and violent manner imaginable. Starbuck's leading the crew after Moby Dick once Ahab is dead is not in the novel, but makes sense since in the novel, Captain Ahab continues pursuing the whale for two days after Fedallah dies. The novel ends somewhat more abruptly once all lose ends have been tied up—no pun intended.

The sinking of the Pequod was inspired by the documented sinking of the whaleship Essex by an enraged sperm whale in 1820. Particularly elusive whales which were repeatedly encountered were given names—"Timor Tom" mentioned in the novel frequented the Straits of Timor in Indonesia, and "Mocha Dick" was often encountered near the island of Mocha off southern Chile. The name "Moby Dick" comes from "Mocha Dick," who was said to have survived over 100 encounters with whalers between 1810 and 1838 when he was killed. Both "Timor Tom" and "Mocha Dick" were white.

The music by Maurice Sainton is the composer's only film score and nearly his only notable work. It is one of the greatest cinema scores of the twentieth century and of the nautical film genre. Bradbury brought a recording of Bernard Herrmann's "Moby-Dick" cantata, based on music he had written for Orson Welles's radio play, "Rehearsing Moby-Dick." Huston was unimpressed, but greatly liked Sainton's cantata "The Island." Sainton was a reclusive, eccentric, and emotionally fragile cello virtuoso. Emotionally abused by his father, who discouraged him from studying music, Sainton had been the chief cellist of the BBC Symphony, until he burned his fingering hand on an electric flatiron, which left him permanently unable to play. He composed only with greatest difficulty and slowness. He prepared themes in advance based on the script, and they were then tailored to the edited film by the orchestrator. Normally, the composer would not see the film until final editing had been completed, and would have only a few weeks to complete a fully-orchestrated score.

Friedrich Ledebur, who plays Queequeg, was an Austrian nobleman, the Graf Friedrich Anton Maria Hubertus Bonifacius von Ledebur-Wicheln. In World War I he served as an officer in the imperial cavalry. He also starred in Robert Rossen's Alexander the Great (1955 United Artists) and Slaughterhouse Five (1972 Universal) from the novel by Kurt Vonnegut. He appeared several times on The Twighlight Zone, and played a nuclear scientist who sacrifices himself to test an alien atomic device in The 27th Day (1957 Columbia).

Huston and cinematographer Oswald Morris designed the special unsaturated Technicolor process. Huston felt overly bright color, such as he had used in Moulin Rouge, would detract from the story.