The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film
directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected
are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra
(It Happened One Night), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be
exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In
this post LR Simon discusses Moby Dick (1956).
John Huston had wanted to film Moby Dick for ten years
before he was finally able to start production. He had thought of his father
Walter for the role of Ahab, but after the elder Huston died in 1950, the part
went to Gregory Peck. Filming took three years on location in Wales and
Ireland, the latter then Huston’s residence. While there are some minor changes
from the novel (all of which tend to make the story more cinematic), this film
version of Moby Dick was the first adaptation to remain true to the novel, and
the first to retain the novel’s ending.
Ray Bradbury wrote the screenplay, but he and Huston argued
over the script and ultimately, Huston had his name put on the screenwriting
credits as well. Bradbury and Huston’s relationship was so tense that Bradbury
went on the dramatize it twice, once in the story “Banshee,” which was produced
for Ray Bradbury Theater with Peter O’Toole in the Huston-inspired role, and again
in the novel Green Shadows, White Whale, which centered specifically on
working with Huston on the writing of the Moby Dick screenplay.
Huston’s relationship with Gregory Peck also suffered during
the period—Peck didn’t think he was right for the role of Ahab, and when he
learned that he was cast primarily to secure funding, he felt he’d been
deceived by the director. Later, Huston rebuffed Peck’s attempt to patch things
up, saying it was “too late to start over.”
Moby Dick may have been Huston’s white whale—production
costs more than doubled, two professional relationships were irreparably
damaged, and it was not the artistic success that his previous films had been.
While the film has some admirers now, for most film fans, it’s more important
for what happened off screen.
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