T he Sea Beast (1926) is a silent film adaptation of the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville, a story about a monomaniacal hunt for a great white whale. However, the film alters the novel’s plotline by establishing prequel (the romancing of Esther) and sequel (Ahab’s safe return) elements that are not in the original story and substitutes a happy ending for Melville’s original tragic one in which the entire crew of the ship Pequod, save for crew member Ishmael, is killed by Moby Dick. Some of the characters in the film do not appear in Melville’s original novel.
Below, you may view a HD copy of the movie (11 mins), transferred from an 8mm home-movie reel.
