Moby Dick (1956)

"Call me, Ishmael."
We open with a suspect name as guide. As Hebrew scripture has it, God's only begotten step-child, fruit of Abraham's disobedience. Religion has these chracters, mythological outsiders, turned slightly into the shaddow of the divine will. And Moby Dick, cast as it was from the ports and harbors of Herman Melville's life at sea, with its heavy symbols and wind swept nuatico-mystic atmosphere, if it has any claim on the divine attentions it is a bastard's claim, through the backdoor with the servants.

In making a two hour entertainment out of one of the largest feats in english language literature John Huston had to whittle Moby Dick down to its core. Which was a risky and difficult thing, purely subjective and open to a thousand interpretations. Is it the story of Ahab's madness or of his hubris against nature? A cautionary tale aimed at the like of Ishmael, a pure adventure, or is it a tangle of symbols, allegories and lore so dense as to resist any distillation? The end result of Huston's work divides opinion starkly enough to suggest the last of these choices is the case.

Huston was passionate about this project. He had originally conceived of it in the ninetieen forties and had his father (Walter Huston) in mind for the role of Ahab. But in a climate where Hollywood was still a closed and regimented society atop the worlds of industry and culture, not everyone got to mount such immense productions as Huston had in mind for Moby Dick.

But by the mid-fifties Television was emergent, seriously cutting into cinema's territory and producers were looking to up the ante and take some risks, albeit in a staid reactionary manner that bespoke a closed group of old white-men expecting new reults from old tricks. This was the era of 3D, Panavision, Cinema-scope and the re-birth of the epic. The Nineteen-Twenties had been the salad days of the immense production and indeed two early versions of Moby Dick came out of that era (1926, 1930)both starring John Barrymore as a romanticized Ahab. But by the fifties nothing so grand and gaudy as the high-career works of DeMille, Von Stroheim and Vidor had been seen in years.

To combat a revolution Hollywood decided on reliving past glories, thus The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur and numerous others were all slavishly remade. Of course the salacious zeal of the roaring 20's was replaced with a dusty 50's moralizing and suddenly Demille, Hollywood's original Ahab, was fit for Sunday School.

This renewed eye for spectacle likely opened the way for Huston's take on Moby Dick, which would involve refitting the Irish seaport town of Youghal into a convincing post-colonial New Bedford, Massachusets, filming in a sea-worthy work-up of the Pequod on waters off The Azores, Portugal, The Canary Islands and Wales and straping studio golden boy Gregory Peck to a faux Moby Dick made of wood, latex and steel.

For Huston the point of the novel which he aimed to capture was clear, "The whole thing was blaphemy," he said, pointing out what many critics seemed to have missed in his film. "Melville Hated God! I never saw Ahab as a ranting madman, but rather as a profound figure, a dedicated blasphemer."

With his script furnished in part by novelist Ray Bradbury, who always spoke highly of the finished film and the great Orson Welles the only other star caliber presence, as the verbose semi-absurd
Father Mapple,


Huston made his picture and though it was recieved cooly by critics and audiences it has since become entwined with the mythology of Moby Dick. The image of Peck as Ahab is indellable.

And though it may well, as Pauline Kael suggested, miss the, "...mystical Melville by several nautical miles," it is a rich intersection of literary and hollywood lore, an example of the drive for entertainment facilitating artistry and craftsmanship.

Huston's Moby Dick is by no means the last word on the subject but as interpretations go it bears the unmistakeable and invaluable stamp of hot blooded folly. Peck has stated that Huston during production was, "...more Ahab himself than any actor could be." If the film withers a bit beside its source that is no crime. What could we imagine of a world where the blasphemers are allowed every vestige of success?