Moby Dick (1930 film)
Moby Dick is a 1930 American pre-Code film from Warner Bros., directed by Lloyd Bacon, and starring John Barrymore, Joan Bennett and Walter Lang.[1] In his August 15, 1930, review, The New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall compared Moby Dick to The Sea Beast: “Enhanced by a variety of sounds and the power of speech, the audible picturization…(is) a far more impressive melodrama than the silent version, which was presented here three and a half years ago.Then there are flashes of the shanghaied crew, a gang of cutthroats described as more accustomed to murder than hurling harpoons at whales.The story races along, and it matters not if the whale is real or not, for the effect is there, whether the white monster of the deep is pulling the small boat through the water at amazing speed, dashing it to bits with a swish of its tail, or, when its great bulk is seen with what looks like a Lilliputian sticking something that looks no larger than a good-sized needle into its half-submerged form.Moreover, he has taken full advantage of the chances for sound, whether it is the lapping of the water, the noises aboard ship during the excitement of sighting a whale or those on the vessel when the whalers return joyously to their home port.Words bring out his true talent, …There is no shilly-shallying in his portrayal of the character, which makes a whaler a man of the seas, one who gloats over the tattooed figures of women on his arm and who evidently only represses oaths when confronted by the charming presence of Faith.The Sea Beast was a huge success…but this vocalized "Moby Dick" should reap an infinitely greater reward.”[4] The film survives intact and has been broadcast on television[5] and cable and is available through Warner Archive DVD-on-demand."[9] Walter C. Metz observes that the film excludes the novel's central character Ishmael and "produces a conventional Hollywood love story between Ahab and Faith, the invented daughter of Rev.