Moby Dick (DVD-R)

Videomatica Ltd (since 1983) Verified independent store

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US Import John Barrymore's second sailing as the carefree scalawag harpoonist, who evolves into the maimed and driven Captain Ahab in the first sound adaptation of Moby Dick, may p lay fast and loose with Herman Melville (just like its silent predecessor The Sea Beast), but it charts a unique and highly entertaining course. The Great Profile plays Ahab as a lovestruck swain whose romance with a New Bedford parson's daughter (Joan Bennett) is severed when he loses his right leg in an ill-starred encounter with the Great White Whale, and his jealous brother (Lloyd Hughes) leads him to believe that his once-promised marriage can never be. So Ahab embarks again as the obsessed master of his own ship with a shanghaied crew to once more hunt the mighty mammal. Lloyd Bacon's vigorous direction, the fluidly mobile camerawork and the spot-on production design create a lustrous period flavor to match the power of the peerless Barrymore -- all the way to an ending that may gall Melville purists, but will enthrall fans of splendid studio moviemaking. Thar she blows, indeed. Show more