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"That Hamilton Woman" tells how Horatio Nelson was more than just an intrepid sailor. French cannon balls and cutlasses were one thing, but at one point he actually moved his mistress under the same roof as his wife; one could lose more than an arm or an eye with a move such as that.

The mistress was Emma Hamilton played by Vivien Leigh while Laurence Olivier played Lord Nelson. It wasn't lost on audiences at the time that the affair they were re-enacting was art imitating life for they had both left first marriages to be together.

Over the years we've learnt a lot about them, and about that tinge of jealousy Larry felt about Vivien's almost natural ability to dominate the screen right from the start. It's as though a cleverly concealed spotlight follows her around. Olivier plays Nelson probably the only way he could, an almost unassailable heroic figure in a film made when victory in WW2 was anything but certain.

The filmmakers took some heat off Nelson's adultery. When we first meet his wife, Frances, you could be forgiven for thinking she was his mother, and a stern one at that. Gladys Cooper played Frances and she was 19 years older than Oliver. In reality Horatio and Frances were the same age. Emma was about 7 years younger; the same difference between Olivier and Vivien. Anyway the camera loved Vivien and there is little sympathy for Mrs. Nelson.

The camera tears itself away from Emma for a noisy, exciting depiction of the battle of Trafalgar. Despite obvious models, Miklos Rozsa's score covers any defects with more stirring anthems than "The Last Night of the Proms".

As well as the intriguing stars, the film is a testament to the set designers art. It also has a witty script helped by the presence of Alan Mowbray as Sir William Hamilton, Emma's cuckolded husband. He also delivers a small speech that resonates down the ages "There are always men who for the sake of their insane ambition, want to destroy what other people build...and dictate their will to others".

Olivier's Nelson also has a passage that was apt in 1799, was scarily relevant in a wider context in 1941 and although world power has shifted, is eerily prescient for 2025: "We can't be guardian angels of every country in Europe too lazy to look after itself. You've got to do something too...if you value your freedom, stir yourselves".

Vivien Leigh only made 8 films after "Gone with the Wind". However in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and thereafter, she portrayed women losing their youthful beauty and struggling to find happiness, films that dug deep into her reality.

Although Vivien comes in around number 6 on lists of the great actresses, after I watch one of her really great performances, I can't help feeling she should be moved up quite a few places.

This version of old Herman's tale has the special effects John Huston wished he'd had in his 1956 movie instead of his miniatures and rubber whale bobbing around in the studio tank.

However, special effects aren't everything when it comes to "Moby Dick" movies. It's the ominous mood and the realization of Captain Ahab and his obsession with the leg-removing white whale that drives the three best films: Huston's 1956 version and the two mini-series, Franc Roddam's 1998 one and Mike Barker's 2011 effort.

I guess each of the filmmakers wanted to give their film something more than the previous one, and this version grew on me as it went along. The filmmakers took liberties even using a whaling schooner instead of the classic, 3-masted Nantucket sailing ship, however the scenes at sea are brilliant, especially the Pequod heading into an awesome looking storm.

John Hurt gives us a more urbane Ahab. Instead of turning up a third of the way through like the Pequod's other single-minded skippers, we open at home with the Ahabs including Gillian Anderson as Mrs. Ahab. I was really alarmed when Ahab even did a pratfall off his newly fitted whalebone prosthesis. It had to get better from there, and thankfully it did.

Mind you there is enough in the book for writers to grab fresh Ahab moments the other versions didn't include. The passage where Pip the cabin boy was lost at sea and then cared for by Ahab wasn't in Houston's version at all.

Despite criticism at the time, Huston lucked in with Gregory Peck. Peck was a larger than life actor and he gave Ahab a monumental quality as though he had detached himself from Mount Rushmore. Patrick Stewart as Ahab projected gravitas with a strong Shakespearean quality while John Hurt gives us a decidedly bi-polar Ahab.

All versions run the risk of an overload of outlandish characters that would not seem out of place at a "Star Trek" convention: Ahab, Queequeg, Father Mapple, Elijah, Bildad etc. The balance comes with Starbuck. He's a grounded character who sees Ahab subverting the crew and confronts him to save all their souls; his casting is as critical as Ahab's. Leo Genn was the rock of normality in Huston's film, and Ted Levine was brilliant in Roddam's version as he stands up to Stewart's fireworks, but Ethan Hawke had a trickier time reacting to the roller-coaster of moods that Hurt projects.

The two later versions don't match the ominous mood of Houston's "Moby Dick". Not only that, but Huston and screenwriter Ray Bradbury, the famous science fiction writer, added something all the other versions copied, Ahab strapped to the whale. It's a nice touch, and although it's not original Melville, maybe he would have slapped his forehead and thought, "Why didn't I think of that?"

For those with an ear for such things, The three versions have inspired scores, All three composers Philip Sainton (1956), Christopher Gordon (1998) and Richard G. Mitchell (2011) added to the excitement of those wild rides in the flimsy whaleboats when the harpooned whales run out the lines - back when the whales actually stood a chance of turning the tables.

By the end, although Hurt's interpretation is a big departure from the others, this is a brilliant looking film with stunning scenes at sea and a Moby Dick that leaves us with a sense of awe.