Word: huston
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sorts of ways. Melville's words suffer somewhat from the drawling, rather lazy articulation that the Captain gives them. There is also a certain loss of credibility, since Peck's businesslike exhortations to the crew could not conceivably move them to the state of excitement that director John Huston has them exhibit. More important, the movie's phlegmatic Ahab could never, never be the magnetic, crazed, God-challenging hero of Melville's book--the character on whom the essence of the novel's supernatural, symbolical, and philosophical meaning is based. With Peck as Ahab, Moby Dick becomes just another fish...
...still one of the best sea tales ever written. Huston's movie may fail to capture the story's deepest meaning, but it does an admirable job of recreating Moby Dick both as a thrilling adventure story and as a portrayal of the whaling industry...
...adapting Melville's 500 pages into a not over-long screenplay, Huston and Ray Bradbury have done a job that is unqualifiedly brilliant. They have followed the plot and the characterizations faithfully, and have even shown a welcome respect for the spoken word--in the sermon by Father Mapple, in Ishmael's intermittent narration, and in numerous speeches by Ahab that are taken almost verbatim from the book. At the same time, realizing that the camera and the pen are by no means interchangeable storytellers, they have not hesitated to take beneficial liberties with the novel. In Peter Coffin...
Many other aspects of the movie serve admirably to heighten the adventure and the atmosphere. The new color style, a blend of black and white with technicolor--is an ideal compromise between the prosaic and the lush. The musical score is appropriate. And Huston controls the dramatic pace effectively, starting slowly in the New Bedford scenes, mixing in increasingly explicit predictions of doom, and constantly quickening the tempo until at the end, in the storm scene and the final fight with Moby Dick, the action grips not just the Pequod's crew but the audience as well...
...That Blonde? A friend got her the big break: a chance to play the shyster's house pet in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle. In this tidbit part, she was an instant sensation. Letters came in by the sackful. All asked the same question: "Who's that blonde?" Fox grabbed her back for $500 a week, raised her to $750 a week. She was on her way to the top-when suddenly the bottom fell...