Moby Dick (1956 film) Moby Dick (1956 film) Moby Dick is a 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel "Moby-Dick". It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Huston and Ray Bradbury. The film starred Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, and Leo Genn. The music score was written by Philip Sainton. Set in 19th-century New England, the story follows the whaling ship "Pequod" and its crew. Leading them is Captain Ahab, who was almost killed in an encounter with the "great white whale", Moby Dick, which bit off much of his left leg. Now he is out for revenge. With the crew that
Moby-Dick and his works, or at least those that could still be fairly easily obtained or remembered. Other works, especially the poetry, went largely forgotten. In 1917, American author Carl Van Doren became the first of this period to proselytize about Melville's value. His 1921 study, "The American Novel", called "Moby-Dick" a pinnacle of American Romanticism. In his 1923 idiosyncratic but influential "Studies in Classic American Literature", novelist, poet, and short story writer D. H. Lawrence celebrated the originality and value of American authors, among them Melville. Perhaps surprisingly, Lawrence saw "Moby-Dick" as a work of the first order despite his