Moby Dick / The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

MOBY DICK, 1956, MGM Repertory, 116 min. Gregory Peck stars as bitter Captain Ahab, driven to find the giant white whale in director John Huston’s screen version of Herman Melville’s masterpiece, aided by a powerful adaptation by screenwriter Ray Bradbury. The film captures the epic sweep and near-biblical tone of the novel, has a superb cast, including Richard Basehart, and features an astonishing cameo by Orson Welles as Father Mapple. “MOBY DICK was the most difficult picture I ever made. I lost so many battles during it that I even began to suspect that my assistant director was plotting against me.

THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, 1953, Warner Bros., 80 min. Dir. Eugene Lourie. A giant prehistoric creature called a rhedosaurus is awakened from his icy slumber by nuclear testing and travels to New York City, where he takes his bad temper out on the stunned population. Based on a short story by longtime Ray Harryhausen pal Ray Bradbury.