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Did Richard Basehart look too old to play Ishmael?

posted 15 years ago by jeffyoung1
18 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong. I love this movie. I like Richard Basehart the late actor. But isn't Ishmael supposed to be a young man in his mid to late twenties, possibly very early thirties at most? Richard Basehart is already 42 years old in Moby Dick. I give Richard Basehart for enthusiastically giving his all in playing the role of Ishmael in this timeless classic. Clearly, Richard Basehart must have felt honored to play the role of Ishmael. Still, Basehart looks too old to play Ishmael. A younger-looking actor should have been chosen. In hindsight, Basehart could have played the role of First Mate, Starbuck better.

[–] wrfarley 15 years ago

What's funny is Richard Basehart was actually older than Gregory Peck, who was 39 when the film was made. I tell ya, Basehart may have been too old, but the film is so ingrained in my DNA that I can't imagine anyone else in the role. When Henry Thomas played Ishmael in the 1990's re-make I remember thinking, "Who is this callow youth?"

[–] Sunflower64 14 years ago

But Starbuck is supposed to be 30, so Richard Basehart would still be a few years too old to play him.

A young girl passes / in a hurry. Hair uncombed. / Full of black devils. --Kelly Link

[–] bradford-1 13 years ago

Who would you have preferred? Robert Wagner? Tony Curtis? Russ Tamblyn? Martin MIlner?
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."

[–] diddymuck 8 years ago

good question...Anthony Perkins tops my personal list.

[–] MONA0825 13 years ago

Well, when I first watched this movie I had no idea that Richard Basehart was already 42 years old. I thought he was 35 or so. And that voice! I fell in love with Mr. Basehart on this movie. Silly me.

[–] bastasch8647 12 years ago

No problem with Basehart - he was skilled enough to play the character "young" - as a person who had already had seamanship experience, but had not been on any extensive whaling missions. Hence, his innocence and inexperience were fully appropriate to the character, and Basehart's performance echoed this perfectly.

[–] Hey_Sweden 12 years ago

Technically, yeah, he was too old for the role, but I thought he did a solid job nevertheless.

What do you think this is, a signature? It's a way of life!

[–] wrfarley 12 years ago

I agree. It never struck me as to how old Basehart was. I didn't think about his age until the poster mentioned it. Is he too old? Yeah. Did he do a credible job as Ishmael? Definitely.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Basehart frequently played characters much younger than himself. In Fourteen Hours (1951), for instance, he played a man of 22, when he was actually 37. Similarly in such films as He Walked By Night, Titanic and several others. Even where his character's age wasn't mentioned, it's clear he was portraying someone much younger than his real age. It was only in the mid-1960s, when he was hitting 50, that his age finally began catching up with him, though he continued to look younger, and often play people who might have been a few years younger, than his age for several more years.

Someone mentioned his voice, which was magnificent. David L. Wolper regularly employed him to narrate his documentaries. Wolper hired Basehart to narrate the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and he did a fine job. Though he was 70, his voice sounded as if he were no more than 50. (Even his voice seemed younger!) The very next morning, Basehart died of a massive stroke.

I think he turned in an excellent performance as Ishmael. When I first saw Moby Dick years ago I had no idea he was 42, because he did such a fine job acting younger. Still, if you pay close attention to his face, he clearly doesn't look 20-ish. The power of his talent put the illusion over. Too bad he never quite got as far as his abilities warranted. True, he was always working, but far too often on projects beneath his talent. He wasn't the typical leading man type.

[–] wrfarley 12 years ago

Agreed again, hobnob53. I have no problem with Basehart's performance. I never even thought about the actor's age until it was brought up here. Rather than a callow youth, he seems just weather-worn enough to have experienced the Merchant Marines, and ready to undertake a new adventure. I seem to remember in the novel that he had been a teacher. Also when he fights the Portuguese whaler, it seems right and true.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Yes, it occurred to me that one could make the argument that he looked more weather-beaten than his age simply because of the harsher life most people led back then. But his voice, and manner of speaking, the respectful and slightly bewildered way in which he addresses others, indicated not merely youth, but an innocence, the unworldiness of a young man just setting out in search of adventure. In short, great acting.

Basehart's breakthrough role was in the Broadway production of "The Hasty Heart" in 1945, playing a rigid Scottish soldier dying in a Burmese military hospital. Unfortunately, as so often happened, when the film version was made the studio (WB) bypassed the stage star and decided to shoot it in England, with a real Scotsman, Richard Todd, in the part. Todd was terrific, receiving an Oscar nomination for his performance. (The nominal star of the film was Ronald Reagan.) But I suspect Basehart must always have been disappointed in not being cast in the film.

[–] wrfarley 12 years ago

Yes, Basehart had a good little cinematic run there in the 50's before he became a "television actor." '56 was particular kind to him; in addition to MOBY DICK, he starred in Federico Fellini's LA STRADA. Funny thing is when I watched "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" on Sunday nights, I did not realize him as the same actor from MOBY DICK or TITANIC. Interesting also, is that Basehart was an almost last minute replacement to play Ishmael. John Huston wanted to cast an unknown, someone with the moniker, Lord Kilbracken (he had cast a number of unknowns in various parts), but evidently, he couldn't act and had to be replaced.

Is THE HASTY HEART the film where Reagan gets his leg amputated?

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Basehart went to Europe in 1954 and did a few films in Italy, basically catching Moby on his way home. (La Strada was actually made in 1954, not '56.) I always thought his European sojourn hurt his career because when he got back to Holywood he was no longer on the list of popular or well-known actors compared to most. Hence, lower-budget films and more TV.

Even he admitted that he took the role of Admiral Nelson in VTTBOTS because the money was so good. (David Hedison, who had turned down the role of Captain Crane in the movie, said he took it on TV largely because of Basehart's presence as Nelson; Hedison was a great admirer of Basehart.) I always liked that show but the first two seasons were the best, with more adult scripts. I felt sorry for the cast in the last two seasons, battling ever more ludicrous monsters and villains.

Hadn't heard about this Lord Kilbracken, but that sounds like one of Huston's occasional idiot ideas. Glad he came to his senses.

No, Reagan had both legs amputated (needlessly, by a sadistic doctor who hated him) in Kings Row (1942), which many people, including RR, felt was Reagan's best film and best performance. (Personally, I think his lone villainous performance, in 1964's The Killers, his final film, was his best acting job.) When Reagan wakes up after the operation, he screams in horror to his girlfriend, "Where's the rest of me?!" That became the title of his 1965 autobiography.

In The Hasty Heart, Reagan played a character called "Yank" because he was always reaching into his underpants to grab -- no, sorry, because he was an American. Warners put him in it mainly to give him something to do and because they wanted a familiar marquee name among a cast of Brits. The leading lady was Patricia Neal, then just at the start of her career and not well known. He's his usual affable self, trying with the others to soften up and befriend the stiff and humorless Scotsman (who doesn't know he's soon to die, but the others in the hospital have been told). It's actually a good, rather poignant movie, and while Reagan adds nothing to it Todd is really the show. I suppose it was best to have an actual Scotsman play the part, but I would have liked to have seen RB's interpretation, for which I believe he won an acting award.

[–] wrfarley 12 years ago

n The Hasty Heart, Reagan played a character called "Yank" because he was always reaching into his underpants to grab -- no, sorry

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You almost had me there. Just imagining it is quite the notion.

Of course, KING'S ROW, which was Reagan's personal favorite. How could I forget?
MOBY DICK was also shot in '54-55. Basehart must have run from one film to the other.

I wonder if Irwin Allen remained an active producer throughout "Voyage's" run. He was the creative force that made it fly (or sink, as it were). According to Bill Shatner, the same fate almost happened to "Star Trek" after one of its creative forces, writer/producer Gene L. Coon left in the middle of the second season.

By the way, there's a Reagan/Huston connection. Walter Huston is the godfather of Nancy Davis, Reagan's second wife (her father was Loyal Davis, who supposedly helped convert Reagan from a Democrat to a Republican). And, of course, John Huston wanted to cast Reagan in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

Yes, it comes back to me that I heard about Walter Huston and Nancy. I can't remember the connection, though I think it was through Nancy's mother.

I never heard that John wanted to cast RR in Treasure. I can't imagine him in any of the three leads, but he could have played the Bruce Bennett part -- though I assume that he was still a big enough star that Huston would have cast him in Tim Holt's role. (Holt was better suited to it.)

Or was he thinking of giving Reagan the part that would have allowed him to utter the immortal line: "Badges? Badges?! Well, my staff and I haven't got any badges. But, you know, I'm paying for this microphone, so Mr. Dobbs, tear down this mine, and win just one for the Gipper."

Walter died two years before Nancy married Ron. I wonder what he thought of him (if anything; he may not really have known him), or how he would have felt about the match. I have no idea what Walter's politics were, but John was a Democrat. But Loyal Davis was a loyal member of the AMA, who fiercely opposed socialized medicine and all the usual bugaboos, values he instilled in his loyal daughter, who in turn turned Ronnie into a loyal Republican by 1952 (though he didn't actually switch parties until 1962). I think he was on his way anyway, but the marriage pushed his conversion to warp speed (since you brought up Star Trek).

I think Irwin Allen did stay pretty closely involved with all his shows, VTTBOTS included, even as his TV empire expanded in the 60s. Obviously he had to do some delegating, and once a franchise was on its way he could concentrate on new things, but I believe he was fairly hands-on...which may not be a compliment in all respects, considering. He was completely out of movies between Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1962 till The Poseidon Adventure in 1972. But for some reason the people who worked for him were always loyal (that word again) to him. Even when he was making films or shows of questionable quality, he got his actors to work for him again and again -- Richard Basehart included, who after Voyage appeared in two of IA's TV movies, City Beneath the Sea (which seems to have been intended as a pilot for a series that went unsold) in 1971, and The Time Travelers in 1978 (no relation to the 1964 movie of the same name).

[–] Cinemaskype 10 years ago

I thought he looked at least 40 in this but still pulled off the role. When you think about it, he's unique in that he's an equal match to Gregory Peck in the vocal chops department, which is important considering he's the narrator. Interestingly, when he smiled I thought he looked a lot like Ewan MacGregor.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

I really don't think it makes much of a difference because Ishmael essentially leaves the stage to Ahab once the Pequod's voyage is well underway. By no means can he be seen as a real second lead IMO.

As others have noted Basehart possessed a fine narrator's voice, but the character is really only seen sporadically during the last two-thirds of the film. He was more than adequate in his role as Ahab's newest able seaman.

[–] 10 years ago

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