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starring: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn, James Robertson Justice, Harry Andrewsdirected by: John Huston
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786304196915
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6304196911
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release Date: November 12, 1996
Running Time: 116 minutes
Sales Rank: 5264
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: June 27, 1956
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
There are so many things right about this 1956 production of Moby Dick, it's a shame it is remembered for the one (debatable) thing wrong with it. As Captain Ahab, the bearded, one-legged, insanely obsessed whaler, Gregory Peck has often been called miscast. The mild, level-headed Peck had many talents, but the volcanic eruptions of Ahab seemed beyond him--even Peck himself felt he was a bad fit for the part after he finished playing it. (Pauline Kael opined that Peck looked like 'a stock-company Lincoln.') Yet Peck's quiet brooding works an intriguing variation on the fiery character. John Huston, a director with a taste for location shooting, had his hands full with the difficult open-water filming in Ireland and the Canary Islands ('The catalogue of misadventures was unbelievable,' he later wrote). Since Ahab is chasing the rare white whale, three false whales had to be constructed, two of which were lost at sea. For all the miscues, the film is amazingly controlled, and especially beautiful to look at: Huston and cinematographer Oswald Morris developed an unusual color process meant to suggest old whaling engravings. The director wrote the script with the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, an inspired choice to adapt Herman Melville's epic novel. Richard Basehart plays the narrator, Ishmael, and Orson Welles provides a wonderful single-scene role as Father Mapple, declaiming the mysteries of the sailor's life in a thundering sermon. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - "A White Whale I Say" ~ A Luciferian Allegory Played Out On The High Seas
Released in '56, `Moby Dick' is one of the film classics of the fifties. Surprisingly the film quality is rather drab at times with the appearance of old newsreel footage. This is generally the case with the shots aboard the Pequot showing billowing sails or the ship from a distance. Yet at other times it's quite artistic and mesmerizing such as; the close-up portrait cameos of the old women standing on the dock, or the brooding sermon delivered by Orson Welles at the beginning.
However ... Read More
Rating:  - Thar she blows...literally
The 1956 version of Moby Dick is one of those nostalgic pieces of film, that sci-fi fans probably rent just to laugh at the special effects, and they would definitely not be disappointed. The action sequences with the whales were flat-out terrible, they were very drawn out and seemed to play off a loop-feed, where you would see the whale rise and descend the exact same way over and over again, until you were seasick yourself. Aside from that, the dialogue and action on the ship were not bad, but the camera ... Read More
Rating: - A modern moby dick
Many of the problems of this production relate to the attempt to compress a cadenced epic into 2 hours. That is to say they are understandable and forgivable. But it also has some gratuitous changes that radically alter major themes in the book and I would say create a more modern sensibility. Hardcore Moby Dick fans and originalists should be aware of this going in, or they will likely spout blood and turn belly up.
The first and foremost of these changes was the decision to jettison Ahab's demonic ... Read More
Rating:  - Moby Dick
I have read Melville's novel several times, it's a favorite of mine. I saw this film 20-30 years ago, and just received it on DVD, hoping I was wrong then: that this movie was a disaster, to the book, to movies.
I was unfortunately hoping in vain. It's the ultimate disaster. The dialogue tells the pictures, the pictures tells the dialogue, the music (horrible and horribly used) tells the dialogue and the pictures, and backwards ... it goes on and on. Unbelievable that for instance Kurosawa about the same ... Read More
Rating: - Moby Dick my review
Moby Dick is a great book, The movie version is good. Gregory Peck may not have been right for Captain Ahab,but was good enough to show the revenge maddend whaler as the villan of the film. The cast does a good job, Ishmael and Quequeg were well played. The special effecects were good its easy topull for Moby Dick over Ahab. Moby Dick is great look at not only whaling but obsession, hate, and the grim stuggle whalers faced at sea.
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