Personal book-bound final shooting script for Moby Dick (Warner Bros., 1956)...

Description

Personal book-bound final shooting script for Moby Dick (Warner Bros., 1956) Vintage original 148-page final shooting script with blue revision pages. Screenplay by Ray Bradbury. The present script was custom-bound for Mr. Peck's personal library in full tan Morocco with title and Mr. Peck's name stamped in gilt on the front board. Spine decorated in gilt with five raised bands. Marbled style endpapers. With 25+ gelatin silver matte double-weight 7" x 9" production stills and portraits from the film tipped to pages bound-in. The binding shows rubbing and scuffs. Spine darkened with a chip at the crown. Fine.

Gregory Peck was unsure whether he was suitable to play the role of "Captain Ahab" in the film but was persuaded by John Huston to take the part. The actor risked drowning twice during production during the stormy weather sequences off the coast of Ireland and a number of crew members suffered injuries. Peck recounted that, "I wasn't made enough, not crazy enough, not obsessive enough - I should have done more. At the time, I didn't have more in me."

Director John Huston admired the poetic and allegorical qualities of Bradbury's short stories and novels, notably The Martian Chronicles (1950), and, on the basis of those qualities, concluded that Bradbury would be ideally suited to adapt Herman Melville's Moby Dick to the screen. This screenplay was, in fact, Bradbury's second foray into screenwriting. His first was the detailed original screen treatment for Jack Arnold's It Came From Outer Space (1953). However, Moby Dick was Bradbury's first fully developed screenplay, a screenplay that director Huston, a fine writer himself, helped to shape and revise.

Please note that while not a studio presentation script, the present script was custom bound for Mr. Peck's personal library and features his name stamped in gilt on the front board.

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