Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies – Volume 74: “Moby Dick”
- Today’s Movie: Moby Dick
- Year of Release: 1956
- Stars: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn
- Director: John Huston
This movie is not on my list of essential films.
NOTE: This installment of Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies is being done as part of something called The 2020 Classic Literature On Film Blogathon being hosted Silver Screen Classics. You can see all the contributors to this blog-a-thon here.
The Story:
Written by Herman Melville in 1851, “Moby Dick” is the tale of the whaling ship Pequod and its’ crew led by Captain Ahab (played by Gregory Peck). What this is really all about is a tale of revenge and obsession. Ahab is a guy who lost most of his left leg when it was bitten off by the “great white whale” called Moby Dick.. This has left Ahab single-mindedly intent on finding and destroying Moby Dick, and he will stop at nothing to do so.
Among others, the crew consists of an experienced merchant sailor named Ishmael (played by Richard Basehart), a heavily tattooed Polynesian harpooner named Queequeg (played by Friedrich von Ledebur), a serious, sincere Quaker in the chief mate Starbuck (played by Leo Genn), second mate Stubb (played by Harry Andrews) who is forever smoking his pipe, and third mate Flask (played by Seamus Kelly) who is a bit of a bully.
There’s plenty of foreshadowing, as a nearby church contains Father Mapple (played by Orson Welles) who gives a sermon based on the story of Jonah and how after his earnest prayer he was saved from the great whale. Then, a man known only as “Elijah” (played by Royal Dano) appears on the dock to offer a prophecy that “the day you smell land where there is no land, that day Ahab will meet his death, and after he will return and beckon others save one to follow him.”
After the Pequod gets underway, Captain Ahab appears on the quarter-deck and delivers a rousing speech during which he promises a one-ounce gold coin to the crewman who first sights Moby Dick, and the coin is nailed to a mast as a reminder. If that didn’t make it clear that the only thing Ahab cares about is the “great white whale,” that becomes increasingly obvious as the film progresses.
In a scene where Ishmael is given the opportunity to be the lookout from the top of the main mast, he doesn’t take long for him to spot a large group of whales. The ship catches and kills five whales, which delights the crew who gets paid as a share of the profits from the value of the whale oil.
However, when Captain Ahab hears from a passing ship that the “great white whale” has been sighted, he immediately he orders a stop to the harvest work and gives orders to sail after Moby Dick is traveling. Naturally, this doesn’t go over well with the crew; this is taking money out of their pocket.
Chief mate Starbuck resists Ahab. He argues repeatedly that the ship’s purpose is hunting whales for their oil, not to seek out and kill Moby Dick in revenge, as revenge is only for the Lord to take. Starbuck even goes so far as to show to the crew a book in which it is clearly written that if a Captain diverts resources to a private matter and neglects the commercial purpose of the enterprise, the other officers are justified in removing the Captain from his duties. But the crew refuses to go along with Starbuck.
The fate of the crew is now inextricably linked to Ahab’s obsession. This is clear when a man falls off the mast and Ahab immediately pronounces him dead and will not resurface. Despite the dismay of the crew, Ahab insists on resuming course without delay.
In another act of foreshadowing, Queequeg commissions the ship’s carpenter to build a coffin with special carvings and made to be waterproof.
Meanwhile, the Pequod meets the Rachel, another whaling ship which has recently spotted Moby Dick. As a result of the ship’s encounter with the “great white whale,” one of its’ whaling boats is feared lost; the Rachel’s captain’s youngest son had been aboard it. But when the Rachel’s captain begs Ahab to aid in the search for the missing boat, Ahab is resolute in his refusal. To Ahab, all that matters is the Pequod is very near the Moby Dick, and now uses the reason that he will kill the whale that killed the captain’s son to justify his vengeance.
Now the die is cast. After surviving a vicious storm which even while in it’s midst Ahab refuses to relent in his pursuit, the Pequod finally encounters Moby Dick and the final battle begins.
Ahab harpoons the whale, but his harpoon’s rope breaks. Moby Dick then rams the Pequod, heavily damaging the ship. As Ahab harpoons the whale again, he is entangled in the harpoon rope which then gets caught amongst the other ropes hanging from harpoons still protruding from Moby Dick as remnants of previous battles.
Moby Dick now has Ahab stuck fast to him; the Captain stabs and stabs with all his might trying in vain to kill the whale. But Moby Dick thrashes about, trashing the Pequod’s whaling boats and dragging Ahab beneath the waves to his death. When Moby Dick resurfaces, the crew see the dead Ahab lashed to Moby Dick, fulfilling the prophecy of Elijah.
The Hidden Sports Analogy:
Ahab had his quest for the great white whale. It became his all-consuming obsession, and all sorts of bad stuff came because of it. But Ahab may as well have been a believer in transcendental meditation compared to the obsessive nature of a National Football League general manager in getting a “franchise quarterback.”
There’s a great example of this a few episodes back in the series Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies. Bill Polian is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because he landed two “great white whale” franchise quarterbacks. In 1986, he landed Hall of Famer Jim Kelly upon the dissolution of the start-up United States Football League (USFL). Twelve years later with the Indianapolis Colts, he took soon-to-be Hall of Famer Peyton Manning over super-bust Ryan Leaf.
Those two decisions really paint the picture of the difference between Bill Polian and former San Diego (now Los Angeles) Chargers general manager Bobby Beathard.
That may or may not be fair, but nobody remembers the guy who netted the cargo hold full of sushi-grade yellow-fin tuna; they only remember the who landed the “great white whale.” Bobby Beathard hauled in more than his fair of yellow-jacketed Hall of Famers, starting with his days building the foundation of those Joe Gibbs-era Washington Redskins of the 1980s. Those teams won three Super Bowls with a boat-load of Hall-of-Famers such as the aforementioned Joe Gibbs, Russ Grimm, Darrell Green, Art Monk, and John Riggins.
But coaches and players get judged on championships; the legacies of general managers are based on the players they acquire. Granted, Beathard did put a ton of talent on his teams, but he never got his “franchise quarterback.” Just look at the quarterbacks he drafted.
Miami Dolphins (as Director of Player Personnel 1972-1977)
- Don Strock: Career back-up; think a 1970s-80s version of Chase Daniel
Washington Redskins (as General Manager 1978-1988)
- Stan Humphries: Part of Beathard’s final draft in Washington, he acquired him for the Chargers in 1992, where Humphries had a couple of pretty damn good seasons and led San Diego to the Super Bowl in 1994.
- Babe Laufenberg: Never played a down as a Redskin, journeyman back-up with 16 career appearance with 7 starts spread across the New Orleans Saints, San Diego Chargers and Dallas Cowboys.
- Mark Rypien: Arguably the closest Beathard gets to his “great white whale,” Rypien was a two-time Pro Bowler and led the Redskins to a Super Bowl victory in 1991, a game in which he was named the Most Valuable Player. The problem is Rypien’s 11 NFL seasons are defined by about a season and a half in which he didn’t suck. But, for the other nine and a half…By the way, Beathard has already left the Redskins by this time.
- Jay Schroeder: This is the guy who got the keys to the Redskin offense after the injury which got Joe Theismann a Dubsy Award named after him. Two and a half season as the starter convinced the Los Angeles Raiders to trade for him. The Raiders gave up a guy who would become a perennial Pro Bowl offensive lineman (Jim Lachey) in return for Schroeder, whose highlight was leading them to a 51-3 seal-clubbing in the AFC Championship Game at the hands of the Buffalo Bills…a game in which Schroeder threw five interceptions.
San Diego Chargers (as General Manager (1990-2000)
- John Friesz: Another “Have Helmet, Will Travel” type. 69 career games with 39 starts, spread out amongst the San Diego Chargers, Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks, and New England Patriots.
- Trent Green: For five years between 2001 and 2005, Green was legitimately one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. The problem was he played for the Kansas City Chiefs at the time.
- Ryan Leaf: Everything you need to know is in the aforementioned installment of Sports Analogies Hidden in Classic Movies.
- Craig Whelihan: Whelihan embodies the desperate need for a quarterback the Chargers faced in the years right before the ill-fated Ryan Leaf pick. Beathard drafted Whelihan out of the storied football program at the University of the Pacific (fart noise) because the Stan Humphries era was clearly over and there wasn’t any meat left on the skeletal remains of Jim Everett’s career. After fourteen total games, even Beathard had to pull the plug.
- Charlie Whitehurst: Not even Charlie Whitehurst could believe anybody thought Charlie Whitehurst could play in this league. How he stayed in the NFL for ten years is completely inexplicable.
Again, to be fair, a lot of those guys weren’t premium-grade draft picks, but almost every one of those guys ended up on the field because there were plenty of times a team for which Beathard oversaw player personnel decisions flat-out needed a quarterback. Continuing to be fair, some of those times were due to injuries, but a lot of them came from failing to recognize degradation in his starters’ performance until it was too late. That’s how Stan Humphries stayed under center in San Diego as long as he did, that’s how Jim Everett made it on the field as a Charger…and that’s how Craig Whelihan ever existed in the NFL.
Some guys just look like an NFL Quarterback. Then there’s Craig Whelihan.
Bill Polian landed not one, but two “great white whales.” That’s why he was known as “the great builder.” While Beathard became a Hall of Famer in his own right, the fact he drafted Ryan Leaf is the “Waterloo” for which he will always be remembered.
It’s almost like Bobby Beathard went looking for quarterbacks at scouting combines by driving a giant Winnebago called the “Pequod.”
The Moral of The Story:
There’s a big difference between having a goal and having an obsession.
P.S. I would be completely remiss if I mentioned Jim Everett and didn’t show the greatest moment in sports television EVER…
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In SD, not only did Beathard miss out on his great white whale, but he actually overlooked one.
In the 2000 draft, he went to HC Mike Riley and told him that he was considering drafting a developmental QB in the late rounds. Riley told him that he liked Stanford QB Todd Husak and a certain Tampa Bay Buccaneer.
On draft day, Beathard asked him who he liked, and he said Brady (Riley had a man crush on Brady since 1995. He tried to recruit him to USC, but the coaches chose two other guys). Bobby looked at film of him, and came back 20 minutes later and said that he wasn’t good enough. The rest is history:
https://www.omaha.com/sports/college/huskers/tom-brady-was-always-the-big-one-who-got-away/article_264e276b-b84f-5b38-bcbb-e77f60f40fb4.html
Also, in 1994, the Chargers (according to scout Dan Shonka) were interested in a certain college FA who would go on to win a SB:
https://www.ourlads.com/story/hall-of-famer-kurt-warner.aspx
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In Beathard’s defense…nobody saw Tom Brady coming…not even Bill Belichick. Let’s be honest, The Brady thing never happens if Mo Lewis wouldn’t have re-arranged Drew Bledsoe’s guts in 2001. There’s a reason he was a sixth-round pick.
And the “nobody saw that coming” thing certainly applies to Kurt Warner as well. Even Brady didn’t sink as low as the Arena League. As much as I loved Dick Vermiel, he only discovered Kurt Warner because Trent Green got hurt.
To me here’s the damning thing about Beathard: How could you spend more than 15 minutes in room with Ryan Leaf and not know he was a “head case?”
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Yeah, I was just putting them in there because those are two other guys that Beathard could have had.
Brady was liked by a few people coming out: Baltimore OC Matt Cavanaugh, and the late Dick Rehbein (NE’s QB coach at the time). I remember thinking that he may be a decent player in the NFL, but I didn’t think that he would be anything special (although, in SD, I think he could have been better than some of those guys, like Whelihan and Whitehurst).
Warner only started one year at Northern Iowa, and didn’t go to the scouting combine (Shonka tried to get him there as a thrower, but there was no spot for him).
Also, he started out with the Pack in 94, and that hurt him. They had Favre, future star Mark Brunell, and former Heisman winner Ty Detmer. Then, after Arena League stints, he was gonna try out for the Bears in 98, but he was bitten by a spider on his throwing hand during his honeymoon. Then, after signing with the Rams, they almost put him in the 99 expansion draft for Cleveland.
Also, I agree with you about Beathard and Ryan Leaf. He was showing red flags, but the talent evaluators ignored them because they were too busy trying to paint Randy Moss as the Antichrist (which they didn’t do with Lawrence Phillips two years ago somehow).
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Often times we can’t make the distinction between our own goals and obsessions.
Huston’s film is one I haven’t seen in a long time and it often runs locally, but never when I think I am in the mood. Timing is everything.
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I understand that. It’s a great flick, but when I’m in the mood for Gregory Peck, I have too many other “go to” movies for him…
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It’s been a few years since I’ve seen this one, but I like Gregory Peck’s performance here, even if I don’t find him totally convincing as Ahab.
Not that it matters, but I did try reading the book once but – after having read 185 pages and the ship had not left the harbour – I gave up. It’s too much to ask of a reader, I tell ya!
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This story has always intrigued me since reading parts of it for school and the film makes it so easy to get immersed in that world for a few hours. Love the poster you picked for your post. Great pick for the blogathon!
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