Kill James Bond! - S4E14.5: Moby Dick (1956) [PREVIEW]

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

This is a preview of a bonus episode! Check it out on our reasonably-priced Patreon! ----- With a 1950s star-studded cast, Ray Bradbury and John Huston bring us a Shakespearean take on a good, simple tale about a man who hates an animal. Content warning: graphic description of the process of whaling ----- FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. As you well know I've been working with a few gazan families to raise money for their daily living costs in the genocide. Thanks to your incredible generosity, we've been able to raise the money to register Ahmed and his family for evacuation from Gaza. I truly, truly cannot thank you enough. I hope the wait is short and I'm able to tell you that he's safe in Egypt very soon.  Here are three more campaigns from trusted sources. Each of these are for a family that need your help. If you're able to help them out at all, it would mean the world. https://chuffed.org/project/121901-help-mahers-family-with-medical-costs https://chuffed.org/project/128691-help-my-family-evacuate-gaza-war-zone https://chuffed.org/project/130802-help-rashas-family-in-gaza-evacuate-and-live ----- WEB DESIGN ALERT Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com 

the of Kill James Bond, I am Captain November, I am joined as always by my friends Captain Thorne and Captain Devon. Ahoi listener, welcome aboard! Aye aye, Captain. And, since it is religion season, we have taken the tiller of the ship of Kill James Bond and yored it hard as starboard into the 1956 movie Moby Dick, which is my co-captain Abbey's choice here. It was, it was. Might seem like a strange choice for religion season listeners, but as we will see, it's actually very apropos. I've been on a huge dick kick lately. I'm just, I'm dick

pilled. I'm a true dickhead because I've been reading and watching every adaptation of Moby Dick I can get my hands on, including Star Trek 2. ALICE Hell yeah. NICOLAS Hell yeah. SONIA As preparation for a role that I'm gonna be filming very very soon, in about two weeks, and lasting all summer, which I can't really talk about. But yeah, this movie fucking rules, and I love it, and it's great. It's Moby Dick!

ALICE It's Moby Dick, And the thing is, I will confess some ignorance here, I am aware of lots of bits of the book from just kind of osmosis, but I've never actually read it, and I had never seen an adaptation of it either. So I'm familiar with the concept of Moby Dick, but this is the first time that I had had like a complete narrative. And I really enjoyed it, even if, I mean, this is the first time that I had had a complete narrative, and I really enjoyed it, even if, I mean, this is the thing, right? Religion season, bonus picks, we're all choosing stuff that's very meaningful to us, right, and I'm thinking I'm gonna learn a lot about my friend Abbey here.

Unfortunately, I was watching this at 2am on the Rosé with my hyenas. And so, most of my notes are just things like, it's short for Mobile Suit Richard. LORENZO Yes! ALICE Yeah, cousin to Leisure Suit Larry. LORENZO That's kind of where I was at as well, yeah. ALICE That's so good. LORENZO I also had never seen or read Moby Dick before, I was vaguely aware of it and like trappings

of it, but I got through cultural osmosis. But this was definitely my first time like actually watching a full adaptation. Mm. Bucking rips. It's great. The novel is really good. I highly recommend it. Yeah. So the novel was written by Herman Melville, came out in 1851, listeners. It was originally a flop and did not sell and is now regarded as one of the greatest works of literature ever written.

So like real sort of blow to high on that one. You may know its story about some guys who go hunting for a big whale called Moby Dick. That may be the extent of what you know about it, but it's really good. Something that every screen adaptation of the novel fails to translate across or chooses not to translate across is that the novel is actually extremely funny. There are some points of it that are absolutely laugh out loud, which they just sort of don't really put in the book, or put in the movies ever, including this one. This one is a very very serious Shakespearean adaptation, which is partly why I love it. ALICE My understanding is that the book is so long

and so in the mold of 19th century novels which are very kind of digressive and include a lot of bits where you're considered to be doing your reader a favor if you explain all of the stuff that's going on, because you save them a visit to the library, and you can get so much out of it. Whereas this is a very abridged, like, here are some themes from Moby Dick, here are the ones that we think are the main ones. Absolutely, yeah. You want a paycheck on the original Moby Dick here? I've just looked up 635. Yeah, it's quite long. The chapters are short though, so it goes in a good clip. But yeah,

you're right, November, there are like huge sections of the novel where he's just like, here's everything I know about Wales! And like, you just get a sort of info dump from Herman Malveau. He tells you his special interests. everything I know about whales." And you just get a sort of info dump from Herman Melville. You don't get that in this. He tells you his special interest. It's very funny you mention that, because I remember a joke I heard about the opening of Moby Dick, and again this is part of my kind of osmotic knowledge of it, where it's like the opening, you know, 200 pages of Moby Dick, are Herman Melville going, here is everything I know about whales, the sum total of human knowledge about whales. There are two things

to know about whales. Number one, nobody knows anything about whales, and number two, a whale is a fish. And the fact that the second one is also wrong is really really pleasing to me. Yeah, there is a funny bit of a novel where he says, now scientists will tell you that whales are mammals, but have you considered, go fuck yourself, they're fish. They're clearly a fish, they're in the fucking water, like what are you talking about? Yeah, come on man. You're cleaning the ocean. They're in the fucking water, like what are you talking about? Yeah, come on man.

You think you know better than me? This begins with a very, like, sort of, classical, uh, we are aspiring to high art 1950s kind of opening title, which promises much because it informs us that in this movie our Gregory Peck, let's fucking go. The screenplay is by Ray Bradbury and John Huston, who also directed it, and it's also featuring Orson Welles. This is a surface of talent, this is a banquet, this is a feast for the senses, I'm looking forward to this. And then, immediately, as we start with the call me Ishmael, sort of like, whaler heading to New Bedford, Connecticut to go and ship aboard a whaling ship, sort

of retrospective, I get taken out by the line. And I go, huh? I hope not. Um. Yeah. So we meet our protagonist, Ishmael, who walks along the beautiful hills of United States America, yeah, East Coast. And it's just like, I fancy going whaling, just for the shits and gigs, to be honest.

Just gonna check it out. I like the sea, why the fuck not. Yeah. And there is this whaling town, which was filmed on location in this tiny, tiny fishing village in Ireland. That is... Yeah, yeah, yeah, because supposedly Houston wanted a place that hadn't changed much in the last 100 years, is what he said.

And they dressed all of the telephone poles as masts, it's really, really smart. But so, you have this whaling town which seems to be just like, sea of whaling ships and one tavern, basically. Where there are a lot of very drunk, very imposing looking men. Also, we see from the sign that the tavern is called, I think it's the spout or something like that. Proprietor Peter Coffin. I had forgotten this. This is another thing that I knew.

I knew that the innkeeper at the beginning of Moby Dick was named Peter Coffin, and I had forgotten that fact, and was reminded of it, violently. No comment. I did not know that fact, and was struck down at 9.35 this morning. I was not prepared in any way to hear that name. That's what the landlord is called in the novel. What are you doing here? What the?

No comment. RILEY I'm trying to keep looking. Kick his own dick? That's crazy. ALICE So, so, Ishmael goes into the thing, and Peter Coffin serves him fully a pint of rum, and I know they've watered the drinks, but like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It just melts, dies immediately. The first thing he sees is a big painting hanging over the bar of a sperm whale destroying a ship. And he says, damn, can a whale really do that? And the guy goes, I think whales can do anything. ALICE Yeah! So specifically we meet Stubb, who's I think gonna end up being our second mate, and he's just like, he introduces us to the theme of the film by saying, if God wanted to be a

fish, he'd be a whale. ALICE Hell yeah. ALICE Which is really funny, because it implies that if God wanted to be a man, he would be like, the best one in terms of strength? Like the biggest dude? Which I really funny, because it implies that if God wanted to be a man he would be, like, the best one in terms of strength. Like the biggest dude. Which I really like. So everyone here talks in a kind of, like, you know the authentic Frontier gibberish bits of Waves and Saddles?

Everyone talks in authentic Weyler gibberish. And since there is nowhere I could find this with subtitles, and I can't see without my subtitles, I was fully just like, what? Huh? For decent por- They do just be saying shit. So they give this shmella kind of light hazing, where they're like, ah, where are the whalers and you gotta ask our permission to hunt whales, and he's like, oh gosh, golly gee, can I have

your permission to hunt whales? And they're like, yeah sure man, whatever. It's really good. It's like, getting permission is like a very simple haunt Wales?" And they're like, yeah, sure, man. It's really good. It's like sometimes that getting permission just is like a very simple social skills check where they're like, do you agree that we're cool? And he's like, yeah, all right. And they're like, all right, buddy.

You're in, let's have a sea shanty. Yeah, yeah, I describe this in my notes as a certified assassin's creed, black flag sea shanties collectible moment. Yeah. These guys have unlocked a song. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah.

But at that moment, there's a big storm blowing outside. At that moment, we get some lightning and some thunder and we hear the noise of somebody walking on a peg leg and everyone rushes to the window and looks at it and somebody in a tall stovepipe hat with a peg leg walks by the window. It's a very distinctive rhythm. It's like, you know, footstep peg leg, footstep peg leg. ZACH Yeah. Oh, it's Ahab!

And Ishmael's like, who's Ahab? And he's like, ahhh, you'll find out later in the movie! ALICE It's really, really interesting to introduce Ahab by, like, the rhythm of his gait, by the, you know, the sort of, like, the pattern of his step, the Ahab break, if you will. And, yeah, he's just this portent outside, he's this specter outside the feast. ALICE and LIAM Specter. ALICE Uh, specter.

LIAM Specter. ALICE Wait, James Bond wants it, anyway. LIAM I be a member of Specter. LIAM Yarr. ALICE Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr It stands for seafaring pirate. I just saw the octopus on the flag and if I'm honest I didn't ask a second question, I just went right in there. Sign me up boys.