Moby Dick

John Huston s 1956 Moby Dick remains admirably faithful to its source. Though slightly intimidated by the sermon delivered by Father Mapple (Orson Welles in a brilliant onetake cameo), who warns that those who challenge the sea are in danger of losing their souls, Ishmael nonetheless signs on to the Pequod, a whaling ship captained by the brooding, onelegged Ahab (Gregory Peck). In an obsessive pursuit of Moby Dick, the great white whale to whom he lost his leg, Ahab s dementia spreads throughout the crew members, who maniacally join their captain in his final, fatal attack upon the elusive, enigmatic Moby Dick.