MOBY DICK is famed as one of the greatest and most difficult to read novels of all time. The tale of a man obsessed with the destruction of a legendary white whale that took his leg and left him scarred has long been considered an allegorical tale of good and evil, looks at the differences in class structure and discusses the existence of God. At 822 pages that's a lot to transfer to a movie that last only an hour and 56 minutes but somehow it was done.The story itself tells the tale of a young seaman named Ishmael (Richard Basehart) who signs aboard the ship Pequod, a whaling vessel run by one Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck). Ishmael is bunkmates his first night before they sail with a tattooed harpooner named Queequeg who has a set of shrunken heads on hand in the room. The two start off tentative but become fast friends as Queequeg teaches Ishmael the ways of the ship.Eventually Ishmael meets the famed Captain Ahab who promises his crew to return with their ship filled with whale oil and success for all on board. But Ahab is a strange sort who also has an ulterior motive. He doesn't just seek whales but one in particular, a white albino whale feared by all and known as Moby Dick. The desire to find the whale is one filled with revenge as it was Moby Dick who took the leg from Ahab on another voyage.The majority of the movie takes the time to set up the final confrontation between man and beast. Segments on dry land before the ship sets sail include a scene set in a church where the pastor preaches from the bow of a ship installed in the church. That pastor is played by Orson Welles who is nearly unrecognizable. The journey of the men, the harsh penalties for wrong doing and the long wait to find the whales they seek all take up a portion of the time.When the great white whale is finally found Ahab promises those who follow him untold fortunes if they will but help him destroy the whale. His obsession with the whale becomes their own and all seem to set aside not just the fortune in whale oil they've already filled the ship with but their own safety as well. Larger than the ship they sail on the white whale seems as determined to insure none of them leave alive and the battle between man and beast is on display.The movie is a mixed bag, entertaining for some and tedious for others. That it is a well-made film that tackled the chore of bringing the novel to life is worth noting and for that matter makes it one worth seeing as well. While the cast does a great job it is Peck who stands out as the near mad Ahab, determined to have his revenge at all costs.The effects for the time are amazing to witness and the sequences involving the whale are fantastic. Done before the days of CGI as it would be accomplished now, the movie here offers practical effects. The whale is a terrifying sight to behold and imagining what it would be like to confront it on its own ground would be something I for one would choose to avoid.Twilight Time is releasing the film in blu-ray format and as with all of their titles limiting it to just 3,000 copies. If interested make sure you pick yours up right away.

MOBY DICK is a solid combination between human drama and sea adventure. This movie is probably the most faithful adaptation of the popular novel by Herman Melville. A sailor comes in a small fishing town in New England. He becomes one of the sailors on the whaling ship. Despite sailor stories that the captain is a freak whaling is successful. However, one day the captain starts to mention the mysterious white whale ...The story focuses on a man and his obsession. Motivation, which establishes very good and dramatic plots, is highly questionable. Despite the captain's consuming hatred and passion for revenge, I think that the motivation of the crew by the captain is the biggest flaw in this film. This is kind of a symbolic representation of the "profound" dialogue that only deepens human agony. Mr. Huston has filled dark atmosphere with a certain amount of mysticism that enhances the feeling of agony and emptiness during the sea wanderingHuman drama is the harmonious combination between effort, error, hope and despair. Sea adventure ends with an expected incident that in the final climax is not impressive. A lot of time and effort was spent on visual effects and it should be respected.Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab is tall, thin and a pretty unconvincing character as a notorious captain, who is torn between his own obsession and revenge. He poisoned the whole crew with his craziness. Characterization is average, due to the complex story. Richard Basehart as Ishmael is a young whale man, observer and storyteller. Leo Genn as Starbuck is the voice of reason. Friedrich von Ledebur as Queequeg is a grotesque phenomenon who is skilled with a harpoon and predicting the future. Orson Welles as Father Mapple got his 5 minutes in the movie. The friendship between the two great directors resulting in an unnecessary appearance.This is an ambitious project which resulted in a solid film about revenge, self-destructiveness and fight against one's own destiny.

This has long been a favorite of mine, but I have a question about the aspect ratio of this film. IMDb's "Technical Specs" page for Moby Dick lists *two* different aspect ratios: 1.37:1 (DVD release) and 1.66 : 1.Now - we all know that many films that were originally shot in widescreen (1.66:1) were then cropped to 1.37:1 for television. For many years, I searched for a widescreen version of "Moby Dick" on DVD or Blu-Ray. I had all but given up, when a user review of "Moby Dick" appeared on TCMDB which claimed that a widescreen DVD *had* been released in Europe (PAL & region 9). Another reviewer on the same page claimed to have seen the film in widescreen on TCM. A search of TCM's website turned up four clips from this film - and sure enough, they're in widescreen. At least one of these clips (Fr. Mapple's sermon) is also available on youtube - BUT - the youtube clip is *not* in widescreen; it appears to be have been copied from the DVD. If you compare them, you'll find something very strange. Normally, "pan-and-scan" DVDs are produced by cropping out the left and right sides of the original widescreen images. But in the case of Moby Dick, it appears that the opposite has been done - the widescreen images were produced by cropping out the top and bottom of the 1.37-1 images. In other words, it appears that Moby Dick was originally shot in 1.37:1, and then cropped to create a widescreen version which has never been released on DVD (at least not in the US). Can anybody shed any more light on the original aspect ratio for this movie? Is there really a widescreen version of this film? And if so, does it contain more information than the DVD version? Or less? (The TCM reviews that I referenced are here: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/17660/Moby-Dick/user-reviews.html TCM's widescreen clips here here: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/17660/Moby-Dick/videos.html and the youtube clip of Fr. Mapple's sermon is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rWV8sBZ9ho)-----------------------------Followup: Amazon is selling an imported Blu-Ray which claims to contain the widescreen version of the 1956 version of Moby Dick. There are a bunch of screen shots from the BluRay on "home theater forum.com" (see note below). I compared those screen shots with similar images from the DVD (which is in the old academy ratio). Sure enough, the widescreen images on the Blu-Ray appear to have been created by cropping the top-and-bottom off of the DVD images. ("Tilt-and-scan" instead of "Pan-and-Scan").For some reason, IMDb won't let me post the name of the website with the Blu-Ray screen shots. They say "it's a very long word, which is not allowed". If you want to see the screen shots, paste the link below into your browser, delete the spaces from "home theater forum" so that it's all one word - then hit "enter".www.home theater forum.com/topic/332782-moby-dick-1956/

The classic seafaring novel by Herman Melville gets adapted for the big screen by author Ray Bradbury and producer / director John Huston, and is just as entertaining as another big budget literary adaptation of two years previous, the Disney production of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". A likable Richard Basehart stars as the narrator Ishmael, who signs on as a crewman on a whaling ship, feeling an irresistible urge to go to sea. His captain is the stubborn Ahab, a man blinded by his need to get his vengeance on Moby Dick, the enormous snow white sperm whale who maimed him. As we will see, Ahab is willing to go to any lengths, and push all of his men to their limit, in the pursuit of his goal. His first mate Starbuck (Leo Genn) is dismayed, believing no good can come of such an obsession. Meanwhile, Ishmael comes to discover a good friend in the stolid cannibal Queequeg (Friedrich von Ledebur). Worth a mention is the fact that this dark, ultimately downbeat tale was initially a hard sell in Hollywood without any substantial female roles, and that Warner Bros. only agreed to make it on the condition that a big star like Peck should get the main role. Even Peck himself had felt that he was miscast, not having enough years on him (he was 38 at the time), yet he shows a real commitment to immersing himself in the role and reciting the prose from the novel. There's much to enjoy here, from an atmospheric recreation of New England in the 19th century, to the production values (the Pequod is vividly created for film, having previously been used in the Disney version of "Treasure Island" and gotten a makeover), to the quite good special effects (I was wondering how Moby Dick himself would look in this film, and came away satisfied) to Philip Saintons' thunderous score to a cast full of very talented actors. Basehart and Genn are excellent, as are James Robertson Justice (as Captain Boomer), Harry Andrews (as Stubb), Mervyn Johns (as Peleg), Seamus Kelly (as Flask), Royal Dano (as Elijah), and Orson Welles in a memorable, captivating cameo as Father Mapple, whose speech about Jonah and the whale sums up the themes of the story. The desaturated pastel colour effect of the movie is the work of cinematographer Oswald Morris, and it helps to give this movie a wonderful old fashioned feel. Hustons' insistence on shooting on an actual ship on the actual ocean would cause cost and time overruns, and while this would unfortunately result in a less than successful film in a financial way, it stands up pretty well today and does deserve some respect. Eight out of 10.