The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)

Excellent adaptation.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

NOTES: Gary Cooper's second last film. He returned to England for "The Naked Edge" (1961), which was also directed by Michael Anderson.COMMENT: Most of us are suckers for sagas of the sea, and this one, as scripted by Eric Ambler from a Hammond Innes novel, offers us most of the standard ingredients that we expect and enjoy: a seemingly deserted ghost ship, mysteriously abandoned by her crew; a wreck; underwater thrills; a prejudiced court of inquiry where things go horribly wrong for our hero; the cowardly captain who didn't go down with his ship, now spurned by his former comrades; an evil mate, spurring on a mutinous crew; salvage and greed. Yes, these are the mainstays of many another nautical tale from "Reap the Wild Wind" to "Captain China" via "Johnny Angel". So what's so special about "Mary Deare?"Mostly the cast. Gary Cooper is just perfect as the victimized mate-turned-captain, while Charlton Heston makes a solid counterpoint. The strong support cast includes such favorites as Michael Redgrave (chillingly persuasive), Cecil Parker (a stickler of a blusterer with the brains of a cabbage), Virginia McKenna (an ambivalent but completely credible "heroine" whose role is small but effective), and Ben Wright (Heston's cautious partner). But the picture's stand-out performance comes not from any of the above worthies but from Emlyn Williams. The distinguished playwright/actor (Night Must Fall) turns the courtroom scene, in which he makes mincemeat out of Cooper, into the picture's most exciting sequence. Yes, thanks to Williams' incisive portrayal (and the probing dialogue handed to him), the court scene, not the action episodes, are what every picturegoer remembers about "The Wreck of the Mary Deare". This is not to say that the movie doesn't have its fair share of action. It does. The climax will have you on the edge of your seat.

The opening 40 minutes or so of this film are fantastic. Cooper and Heston are excellent. The sets and special effects are extraordinarily good and exceptionally realistic for the era and everyone should be gripped by this point. We then move to the first and most crippling thorn in the side of this film, Richard Harris. His role is small but important and played with all the subtlety of a lead balloon. With an accent that varies from brummie to cockney to South African (but is defiantly never Irish), he dominates every scene in which he appears in a way that - thanks to his acting - his character somehow never quite manages. We then move to what should appear to be a gripping peak, Cooper's day in court. This is a critical part of the story, but minor sub-plots, instead of being used to build up or sustain the tension, instead provide distractions and disperse much of the energy. The court case which is deliberately anti-climactic should serve to drive the momentum of the story forward, but comes across as a sort of ineffectual interlude until we are allowed to return to the drama of the final reel. Here again all is fine and things begin to build up again until Harris is required to take the menace and terror up a further notch. He fails. There is drama, but it's nothing to what it might have been. The film closes with a nondescript scene tying up loose ends and includes the line "I think perhaps there will be serious charges against the owners in London". Well gosh, really!

Although Gary Cooper doesn't appear on screen for the first ten minutes or so, this movie is clearly his. Charlton Heston is billed second, and while his part is substantial, Cooper ultimately gets the meat of the movie. It's downright striking when Cooper, as Patch, first appears. This sea-wary captain looks nothing like the dapper romantic lead we associate with Cooper. He's grizzled, tired and dirty from head to toe. Cooper never got his universally-praised swan song moment before he passed, mainly because critics at the time panned a wonderful little movie called Love in the Afternoon based solely upon the age difference between Cooper and Audrey Hepburn.You may not even notice, but there's very little dialog for the first forty minutes of this movie. There's such an eerie feeling, and so much going on visually, that dialog isn't even necessary. The special effects are stunning in this film. Everything in this picture, unlike contemporary movies, looks utterly believable. The beginning in particular has a few breathless sequences which certainly stand the test of time visually.This picture is directed very capably by Michael Anderson; it nearly became an Alfred Hitchcock production before Hitchcock decided to make a little film called North by Northwest instead. No matter, Anderson, of Logan's Run and Around the World in Eighty Days fame, does a fine job at the helm. Heston plays his part, Sands, very well; free of the grandness and scope that people usually peg him for from the epics. Richard Harris also takes the villain role which could have easily come off as silly and made it dangerous and creepy.I give this movie a 9 because I think the script could have used a couple lighter moments between Cooper and Heston. The ending scene, while a little short, was especially well-done. It takes on added emotional weight by the fact that this film would be Cooper's second to last. Watch this movie for Heston. Watch it for Harris. Watch it to see the pairing of two heavyweights in Cooper and Heston, but especially watch it for Cooper.

A tense sea drama full of intrigue. John Sands(Charlton Heston)aboard a salvage boat discovers the freighter "Mary Deare" adrift in English waters and is suspected derelict. Sands boards the foundering vessel searching for clues to its abandonment and finds Captain Patch(Gary Cooper)obviously being secretive to the situation. When the "Mary Deare" is believed sunk, Patch is accused of negligence and needs the testimony of Sands to clear him at an inquest by uncovering the doings of a unscrupulous salvage crew. In spite of the good special effects, this movie often goes unnoticed. In support are: Richard Harris, Michael Redgrave, Ben Wright and Virginia McKenna.