Moby Dick
Director: John Huston
Year Released: 1956
Rating: 1.0
Big flop in Huston's illustrious oeuvre (yes, even worse than Night of the Iguana), trying - with Ray Bradbury - to strip the Melville novel of the 'excess' and present the bare bones; what remains is a visually delightful but ineffective adaptation. The performances are its strong point (aside from a goofy Orson Welles): Gregory Peck's Ahab is better than I was led to believe (he revisited the role later on in life - maybe playing the Mad Captain's a lot like doing Lear: it takes old age and wisdom to truly understand the character) and Friedrich Ledebur is superb as Queequeg the cannibal. The scenes can almost be divided into two types, however: those with Ishmael's narration and those with Ahab's (long) speeches, sacrificing creative improvisation for an overly literal interpretation.
