Moby Dick

1956
PG
1h 56m

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

23K

YOUR RATING

Play trailer3:11

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95 Photos

Epic Period Drama Quest Sea Adventure Tragedy Adventure Drama

The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

23K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 5 wins & 4 nominations total

User reviews169

Featured review

7/10

Deforestation

For those folks that want great literature without having to read a 500-page tome, then this Readers Digest like condensation might be the ticket. All the high points of Moby Dick are touched on starting with 'Call me Ishmael," and so on.

As all have already pointed out, Gregory Peck has nailed the Ahab character. You got me how he managed the whalebone peg leg. The obsessive rush to take vengeance on the great whale boils in crazed Ahab's head and certainly his crew one by one catch the fever for either greed or blind allegiance. Therefore, our allegorical story full of biblical references mete out large portions of philosophical sophisms, enough for the entire Humanities Departments at fifty Universities to burn the midnight whale oil; oh, the reams of paper written about poor Moby, we're talking deforestation here.

If ever there was a story to get young men to read Lit, Moby Dick is the one.

RARubin
Jul 30, 2006
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Trailer 3:11

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Trivia
Gregory Peck initially blamed the poor reviews of his performance on the script, which he felt contained "too much prose from the novel". However, he later acknowledged that he had been too young for the part at 38, since Captain Ahab was supposed to be an old man at the end of his career (Ahab's age, as implied in the book's chapter "The Symphony", is 58). He added, "The film required more. At the time, I didn't have more in me." and apologized to the screenwriters. Director John Huston admitted he didn't want Peck as Ahab, but had spoken very highly of him & was very satisfied with his performance.

Goofs
The way the ship was moved away from the pier was incorrect. The crew is shown hauling a line from the pier. This would not make the ship move forward. To move a ship out of the harbor, it is therefore, necessary to provide something to pull against. A special anchor, called a kedging anchor, is carried as far from the ship as possible by the longboat and then dropped to the seabed. The remaining crew pull the ship out to it winding the line around the capstan or winch, and then it is hauled up and the process repeated as many times as necessary.