Moby Dick (Cliffs Notes Version) dvd movie.|
Moby Dick (Cliffs Notes Version) buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
 |
List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $1.99 Features • Color • Dubbed • DVD-Video • Special Edition • Subtitled • NTSC In Theaters : 27 June, 1956 DVD Release : 24 July, 2007 |
| [ + Zoom ] [ Buy Now ] | DVD : Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
Moby Dick (Cliffs Notes Version) description 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 |
|
|
| ♥♥♥♥♥ | 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 was almost entirely consumed with Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck) who did a fine job, in spite of going a bit overboard and breaking into Shakespearean soliloquies which were so wooden and long-winded, it left one wondering how long he could keep it up without bursting out in laughter. The final scenes with Moby Dick were as ridiculous as the rest of the whale scenes but demonstrated Ahab's amazing dexterity in riding atop the whale while it dove under and jumped across the ocean!
If you have time, skip the film and read the book. Melville is too gifted a writer to substitute such a poor rendition, and his works are filled with too much rich detail and satire for a film to encompass. |
|
|