Some in Hollywood were taken aback by Huston’s screenwriting choice to bring Melville to the big screen. After all, to adapt a profoundly complex literary novel, he had given the nod to a man known for writing science fiction. Perhaps no one was more surprised by Huston’s choice than Bradbury himself. Huston had read the most recent book Bradbury had sent him, The Golden Apples of the Sun, and the lead story was all it took.
“The Fog Horn” is a tale about two lighthouse keepers who, late one November night, are paid a visit by a beast that has surfaced from the depths after hearing the lonely call of the lighthouse’s foghorn. Bradbury’s love of dinosaurs had led him to write the story, and it was this love that led Huston to believe he was the right man to adapt Moby-Dick. In reading “The Fog Horn,” Huston stated in his 1980 autobiography An Open Book, he “saw something of Melville’s elusive quality.”
Completely upending his life in less than a month, Bradbury, along with his wife Maggie and two young daughters, Susan (aged four) and Ramona (aged two), departed for Ireland. They were joined by Susan’s preschool teacher, who accompanied the Bradburys as their governess. Bradbury was terrified of air travel, so they planned to take an ocean liner across the Atlantic. Ray Harryhausen was at Union Station to see them off on their great adventure. As the passenger train cut through Utah, Bradbury wrote the opening page of the screenplay.
After spending two days in New York, the Bradbury family set out for Europe aboard the SS United States, a 990-foot luxury liner that had made its maiden voyage just a year earlier. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship was caught in the middle of a hurricane. Ever the romantic, Bradbury took the opportunity to reread Moby-Dick on the afterdeck as the ship sailed through the enormous Atlantic swells. Bradbury didn’t know it yet, but the storm foreshadowed more turbulence ahead.