Tonight on TV: No, the hunt for marine predators didn’t start with Jaws!

Having already produced two versions – one in 1926, the other in 1930 – Warner is embarking on a third film adaptation of the novel. Moby-DickWritten in 1851 by American author Herman Melville.

This project was entrusted to the director John Huston in 1954, who found it too difficult to adapt the works as his specialty. He started his career with The Maltese Falcon, based on Dashiell Hammett’s detective classic.

Therefore, John Huston tackles Moby Dick, in which he discovers one of his favorite themes: the glorious failure. Writing the screenplay, which was marked by conflicts with screenwriter Ray Bradbury, lasted a year. The end result also struggles to impress Warner, who doesn’t really see any potential in such a dark story without any romantic intrigue.

However, the studio gives the green light to the project on the condition that it will be carried out by an identifiable star of the public. After that, John Huston entrusted the role of Captain Ahab to Gregory Peck, although he was used to sober and thoughtful characters.

Production problems (the whale used kept breaking apart during filming) and then post-production problems delayed the film’s release, which didn’t hit theaters until 1956.

Although this confused audiences at the time who were expecting a pure adventure film, Moby-Dick has several main assets: first of all, its fidelity to the original novel, as well as its different levels of reading, but also its setting, which is at once epic and intimate, and finally, the masterful interpretation of Gregory Peck.

Moby-Dick John Huston with Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn…

Tonight on Arte at 20:50.