Jim le harponneur

There is a whale named Moby Dick, and part of him is white. There is guy named Ahab, but he is basically a buffoon, and later a maniac. Now the off kilter part is a part of the original But instead we have silly romance and a villain, who is the half brother of Ahab (really?). He does lose his leg because of his brother but doesn't know about it for a long time. Anyway, it's a way of getting John Barrymore's acrobatics and his handsome face on the screen. The final scene is ridiculous. There are some decent whaling scenes and some pretty good music. If it weren't called Moby Dick, it would still be a rather weak film.

I streamed an online version of this that was copyrighted Televista, Inc, 2007. I don't know how close to the original print it really was, but I assume it was pretty much the same as what audiences saw in 1926. If it is an accurate transfer, then, man oh man, this is the worst edited movie in history. The philosophy that guided the editing of this film must have been, if you can have an eight-second close-up of someone's face, why not make it eighteen-seconds instead? More than twice as good! Why settle for two reaction shots from a character if you can have five? Why have a character tell someone she love him just once when you can have the same scene repeated three times?

The pacing is atrocious, with a simplistic, conventional love story that reduces Ahab to a forlorn lover, completely scraps Ishmael, and doesn't even give names to most of the Pequod crew. This is most certainly not Melville's book, and the events that at all resemble the novel don't begin until over an hour and fifteen minutes into the film.

There are some decent flourishes at the end, including an innovative use of Ahab's peg leg that's original to this film and also some decent expressive acting from John Barrymore and Dolores Costello in the final scene. The version I saw also had some pretty sweet percussive music during some of the action scenes, though most of the score was fairly conventional stuff.

This is an interesting curio considering Melville's novel was a massive flop whereas this was a blockbuster success. There truly is no accounting for taste. This might satisfy the curiosity of Melville enthusiasts, but for a general viewer this movie is an absolute bore.

Hmmm. This is what we would call a "re-imagining" nowadays. Herman Melville's classic "Moby Dick" underpins this far more romantic story as John Barrymore "Ahab" has to battle his brother "Derek" (George O'Hara) for the affections of "Esther" (Delores Costello) on land whilst joining in the battle against the great white whale from the novel at sea. I found the romance just a bit too drawn out and tedious, but when the film takes us to sea it comes alive with some cracking cinematography that depicts the dangers the sailors faced doing their jobs (including plenty of rats milling aboard amongst the injured and/or sleeping men). I can't say the print I saw was great, and the accompanying score was so soporific as to remind me of the music played at the dentist to calm me when I'm having root canal treatment! Barrymore is good, though. His maniacally obsessive expressions when tracking the whale (which, by now, has relieved him of his lower leg) are genuinely menacing - though clearly not so much for the whale. The ending is far removed from the book, too - and that removes much of the potency from the the whole thing, leaving us with a rather slushy maritime drama that just doesn't have enough of action and adventure for me.

This film is rarely seen and not available on video. I made a personal copy on Beta tape (from a 16mm print) over 20 years ago to assist in the writing of my master's thesis on the adaptations of Moby Dick. Although it has some interesting maritime visual elements including some documentary footage of the butchering of sperm whales - it has very little to do with Melville's story or characters. Ahab is given a more heroic and romantic treatment. A love interest (Esther) and a rival half-brother provide a conflict never dreamed of by the novelist. The 1930 sound version is similar in most respects although shorter. I won't spoil the ending but you can again be sure it has nothing to do with Melville.

Ahh!!! This silent film was released to DVD by Televista. That means that the print will be god-awful--which is true of the two dozen or more silents I've seen from this company. HOWEVER, at least the films are being released, as the films were not available any other way. So, if you can bear with the fuzzy, scratchy and occasionally shaky print, you might want to try this film. But, if you want a film that is in moderately good shape...look a bit further.

Another very important thing you must know about the film is that it is sort of like the antithesis of the old "Dragnet" maxim "...the names were changed to protect the innocent". Instead, the original names of the characters were all there BUT almost everything in the story is different from the novel!! It is Moby Dick in name only--and it's an abomination to say this is the Melville tale. The many, many, many dissimilarities are too many to name in this short review--but suffice to say that the entire meaning behind the story is gone as well as the symbolism. Instead, it's just a mess...a mess that has huge sections about an abortive love affair for Ahab in which he loses the girl to his half-brother (who is crazy--not Ahab) and Ahab is portrayed as a sad and likable guy--NONE OF WHICH was in the book.

So, you can only enjoy this film if you can ignore that it is clearly NOT "Moby Dick" and you don't mind watching one of the ugliest quality prints money can buy! And, as a film which bears no similarity to the classic tale, it's okay...just okay. While there is some nice sea footage, there also is the gratuitous use of irrelevant whale processing footage at the beginning. Overall, it's really not worth your time.