FILM · 1956 · USA
Moby Dick
47 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (47)
- #001
The whale "Moby Dick" was a 25-metre-long structure reinforced with steel and covered in rubber. Two full models were built, each costing about $30,000, and both were lost at sea during filming, which required a third to be constructed for the scenes shot in the Canary Islands. At one point the third whale's tow rope snapped during filming and it sailed off into the fog with Gregory Peck on its back.
- #002
Gregory Peck disliked his performance as Captain Ahab so much that even nearly 20 years later he refused to let Steven Spielberg use a scene from Moby Dick in Jaws (1975). Spielberg's original idea was to introduce his star Robert Shaw while watching the film in a cinema, laughing loudly at the screen. Peck did not object to appearing in such a scene but objected that it was the Ahab performance he so strongly disliked, and refused permission.
- #003
Gregory Peck, who did not use a stunt double, injured his kneecap, Richard Basehart broke his ankle while jumping from a boat, and Leo Genn slipped a disc and contracted pneumonia before the shoot was finished.
- #004
Cinematographer Oswald Morris used a unique dye transfer technique employing wide-cut black-and-white matrices to create the film's desaturated, pastel-toned look. This causes separation and involves the other two colours before they are recombined to create the desired effect. A silver layer was then added in the fourth pass.
- #005
Although Ishmael is said to be in his twenties, Richard Basehart was forty when the film was shot, two years older than Gregory Peck.
- #006
Captain Ahab estimates the location of Moby Dick at Bikini Atoll, which he points to on a chart. This location is not mentioned in Herman Melville's book. In 1956 many viewers connected the site of the atomic bomb tests with the film's theme.
- #007
Orson Welles suffered stage fright while filming Father Mapple's sermon. To calm the actor's nerves, John Huston hid a bottle of brandy on the set so that Welles could visit it when needed.
- #008
When Starbuck enters the captain's cabin and tells Ahab he needs some sleep, Ahab says his bed is a coffin. This was literally true. The officers were to sleep in a box; if he died during the voyage, his bunk would become his coffin. Similarly, the non-officers slept in hammocks that would serve as their burial shrouds if they died during the voyage.
- #009
John Huston shopped the film around Hollywood for three years before United Artists and Moulin Productions Inc. agreed to produce it. It was a dark, depressing story with no female element or love interest, and Hollywood shied away from the script. Warner Bros. agreed to theatrical distribution on the condition that a famous actor take the role of Ahab. Many people thought Gregory Peck was the wrong actor, and Peck himself thought Huston would be the best choice for the role.
- #010
42 years after playing Captain Ahab, Gregory Peck took the role of Father Mapple in Moby Dick (1998).
- #011
The innkeeper Peter Coffin, played by Joseph Tomelty, was voiced by director John Huston.
- #012
One of the legends circulating about this film is that it was shot on location. Despite extensive location work (the Canary Islands, the Irish Sea, Youghal, Ireland), more than two-thirds of the film was shot at Shepperton and Elstree Studios in England. These include the Spouter's Inn tavern scenes, Father Mapple's sermon, Ahab's first speech on the deck of the Pequod (note the painted sky backdrop), the typhoon, and Ahab's dialogue on the whale's back. Although there are a few shots of the twelve-metre Moby Dick on the open sea, most of the whales seen in the finished film are miniatures of various sizes and selected body parts (jaws, body cylinders, eyes) coordinated by art director Stephen B. Grimes.
- #013
John Huston had at one time considered casting Orson Welles as Captain Ahab.
- #014
Walter Mirisch recalls that John Huston insisted on shooting at sea on a real ship. The stormy conditions caused the cast and crew to fall ill, delayed the production and pushed it over its $4.5 million budget. The film has not to this day recouped its production cost.
- #015
Roald Dahl made some changes to the screenplay.
- #016
John Huston said this was the hardest film he had ever directed.
- #017
The ship captained by Captain Boomer (James Robertson Justice) is the 'Samuel Enderby'. Enderby founded a whaling company called Samuel Enderby & Sons. The company's ships sailed the seas all over the world, including on whaling voyages and as part of the Third Fleet bound for the colony of New South Wales.
- #018
Part of the film was shot on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. Nearly 60 years later, part of In the Heart of the Sea (2015) would be shot in the Canary Islands. The latter film is based on the historical Essex disaster that Herman Melville used as the basis for the climax of Moby Dick.
- #019
Director John Huston had footage of a real whale hunt shot off Madeira and used the bloody scenes in the film.
- #020
Ahab's servant in the novel, Fedallah, was cut from the film. His role was merged with Queequeg.
- #021
Gregory Peck later said that John Huston was not a good director when it came to helping actors with particular scenes. For the rest, however, Peck insisted that Huston was a magnificent filmmaker.
- #022
The town of Youghal in County Cork, Ireland, was one of the locations used for filming. A bar in the town was named after the film — "Moby Dick's" — and it is still there.
- #023
During filming, Gregory Peck stayed with a minister and his wife in Fishguard. Peck got on so well with the family during his stay that the minister's daughter was so upset at his departure that she cut up some of her clothes.
- #024
The Starbucks Coffee chain takes its name from the character Starbuck in the Pequod's crew.
- #025
Orson Welles wrote his own scenes at the encouragement of director John Huston.
- #026
Woody Strode is thought to have been considered for the role of Queequeg but could not get away from the set of Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). Although Strode had finished his brief scene as the King of Ethiopia, he took on another role as a vein carrier for Moses' mother. This meant DeMille needed to keep him around for reshoots until the end of the production, and it cost him, albeit unintentionally, a major role in John Huston's film.
- #027
Orson Welles's single-scene guest appearance helped secure funding for a stage production of the same story.
- #028
Although the film was not released until 1956, most of the shooting took place in 1954.
- #029
The scene in which Ishmael stops Queequeg from killing himself by reminding him of his promise of lasting friendship does not appear in the novel.
- #030
Like the source novel, the film opens with the line "Call me Ishmael." This is the only place in the film where the protagonist's name is spoken. Whenever anyone addresses him, they call him "you" or "lad" or some other vague name of the sort.
- #031
Ahab takes his name from the wicked king of Israel (1 Kings 16:30).
- #032
John Huston also voiced the lookout who dives into the sea.
- #033
Queequeg, who belongs to a Polynesian tribe in the novel, is played by the Austrian actor Friedrich von Ledebur.
- #034
Several of Gregory Peck's attempts at playing the villain were judged unsuccessful, perhaps because the public could not accept Peck as anything other than a good man. In particular, he was considered too young at 38 to play Captain Ahab, since the character is described as an old man in Herman Melville's novel.
- #035
St. Elmo's Fire is a phenomenon that occurs during thunderstorms, when the ground beneath the storm is electrically charged and a high voltage exists in the air between the cloud and the ground. This breaks down the ionized air and makes it glow blue. The blue light is believed to be caused by Cherenkov radiation, produced by charged particles travelling faster than the speed of light through an insulating medium.
- #036
After shooting "Moby Dick", John Huston decided to settle in Ireland. It would be one of seven films Huston shot there, or partly shot there.
- #037
Fredric March was considered for the role of Ahab.
- #038
Richard Basehart (Ishmael) later starred in The Ghost of Moby Dick (1964), in which his character reads a passage from Herman Melville's original novel.
- #039
Ray Bradbury's "Green Shadows, White Whale" is a semi-fictional account of his screenwriting work.
- #040
Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, John Wayne and Marlon Brando were considered for the role of Captain Ahab.
- #041
The character Lieutenant Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica (1978) and the later TV series took his name from Ahab's second-in-command.
- #042
It was included in the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 nominated films for the 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Films.
- #043
Montgomery Clift was interested in the role of Ishmael.
- #044
The fake white whale used in the film kept sinking, breaking and so on, which meant it had to be constantly rebuilt, leading to budget overruns and schedule delays.
- #045
It is one of Morgan Freeman's favorite films.
- #046
The Mirisch brothers produced the film through Moulin Productions and distributed it through Warner Bros., which held the distribution rights until 1963. Due to financial problems, the brothers sold the film's underlying rights to United Artists, which would soon own the pre-1950 WB library after acquiring Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.). UA maintained WB's original contract until it expired in 1963, then took over the rights entirely. That same year, the Mirisch brothers sold their later company to UA, which had agreed to distribute their products from 1957 onward.
- #047
Gregory Peck and James Robertson Justice had previously appeared together in Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and David and Bathsheba (1951). Both would later appear in The Guns of Navarone (1961).
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