Ray Bradbury is about to turn ninety. His books are on my long, long (almost billions and billions) list of books to be re-read. When I was growing up and on a steady diet of science fiction -- which is maybe why my brain developed but the rest of me looks undernourished -- I read plenty of Bradbury but while I didn't dislike his stuff, it didn't impress me any more than the forgettable Ace Doubles I also read. Well, except for Farenheit 451, probably because to a young bookworm like me it was hard to imagine anything more horrifying than a society that burns books.

Maybe at the time I found his style too literary, or maybe I was too young to fully understand what he was saying. I certainly didn't appreciate his screenwriting efforts on Moby Dick.

I and my friend from next door impatiently anticipated seeing the movie in the local theater at the bottom of our street. There was nothing better than a good monster movie. The Crawling Eye, Reptilicus, Godzilla. And now a giant white whale. Neat! (Today it would be cool but back then it was neat.)

We imagined what it was going to be like. Moby Dick smashing through ships like a gigantic battering ram, reducing whole armadas to splinters. His water spout, we figured, was powerful enough to lift a whole ship into the air and then let it drop. Boom! Naturally he would menace entire cities. With one might slap of his tail he'd drown Manhattan in a towering tidal wave. Or he might leap into the air and do a belly flop on Tokyo. When they sent the jet fighters he'd simply dive. And woe to any submarines foolish enough to confront him. They'd be nothing more than nuclear powered snacks. And, of course, all that radiation would make him grow even bigger!

So we paid our fourteen cents admission and settled into our seats with our large Cokes, Sugar Daddies, tubs of popcorn and boxes of Black Crows and eagerly waited to to thrilled.

And waited. And waited.

How did we know they'd let Ray Bradbury get hold of the screenplay? All I can recall is some cranky old geezer stumping around on a ship and endless talking. The monster hardly showed up and when it did it was totally fake! Great White Whale? More like a white rubber ducky. Not that I hadn't outgrown bath tub toys because I was far too big for them anymore. Absolutely.

I'm told there was some action but by the end of the movie we were too paralyzed with boredom to notice. Not to mention sick to our stomachs from all the candy and popcorn. Maybe Moby Dick was lucky he hadn't eaten those nuclear submarines.

I guess I should wish Ray Bradbury a happy ninetieth birthday but I have never entirely forgiven him for ruining what should have been the best monster movie ever.