Moby Dick (1956)

Actors: Friedrich von Ledebur (actor), Arthur Mullard (actor), Gregory Peck (actor), Noel Purcell (actor), Royal Dano (actor), Bernard Miles (actor), Leo Genn (actor), Harry Andrews (actor), John Huston (actor), John Huston (actor), Mervyn Johns (actor), James Robertson Justice (actor), Francis De Wolff (actor), Richard Basehart (actor), Orson Welles (actor),

Plot: This classic story by Herman Melville revolves around Captain Ahab and his obsession with a huge whale, Moby Dick. The whale caused the loss of Ahab's leg years before, leaving Ahab to stomp the boards of his ship on a peg leg. Ahab is so crazed by his desire to kill the whale, that he is prepared to sacrifice everything, including his life, the lives of his crew members, and even his ship to find and destroy his nemesis, Moby Dick.

Keywords: 1800s, 1840s, 19th-century, anti-christianity, based-on-novel, blasphemy, blockbuster, boat-captain, carpenter, character-name-in-title
Genres: Adventure, Drama,
Taglines: From the immortal adventure classic...of whaling men, their ships, and the sea! The most eagerly awaited motion picture of the year! The man - the whale - the vengeance - the mightiest adventure ever seen! Before the shark there was the whale (US rerelease 1976) In all the world---in all the seas---in all adventure, there is no might like the might of [Moby Dick]

Quotes:

Captain Ahab: Birds... the birds... *He rises*!

Ishmael: [in voice-over narration] Long days and nights we strained at the oars while a white whale swam freely on, widening the waters between himself and Ahab's vengeance.

Starbuck, first mate: To be enraged with a dumb brute that acted out of blind instinct is blasphemous.::Captain Ahab: Speak not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. Look ye, Starbuck, all visible objects are but as pasteboard masks. Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing puts forth the molding of their features. The white whale tasks me; he heaps me. Yet he is but a mask. 'Tis the thing behind the mask I chiefly hate; the malignant thing that has plagued mankind since time began; the thing that maws and mutilates our race, not killing us outright but letting us live on, with half a heart and half a lung.

Ishmael: Ehhhh, you can't fool us; it's the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he's got a great secret in him.::Elijah: I have, lad, I have. At sea one day, you'll smell land where there'll be no land, and on that day Ahab will go to his grave, but he'll rise again within the hour. He will rise and beckon. Then all - all save one shall follow. (Slinking away with a smile on his face) Mornin', lads... mornin'. May the heavens bless you.

Captain Ahab: By heavens man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and fate is the handspike.

Starbuck, first mate: It's late; you should turn in.::Captain Ahab: Sleep? That bed is a coffin, and those are winding sheets. I do not sleep, I die.

Ishmael: [in voice-over narration] He did not feel the wind, or smell the salt air. He only stood, staring at the horizon, with the marks of some inner crucifixion and woe deep in his face.

[first lines]::Ishmael: [voiceover] Call me Ishmael.

Captain Ahab: From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned whale.

Father Mapple: Delight is to him who coming to day him down can say, "O Father, mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's. Yet this is nothing. I leave eternity to Thee. For what is man, that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"