The Wreck of the Mary Deare

source: The Wreck of the Mary Deare

I just love this film. For years I had to be content with my old VHS television print. When it was finally released on DVD I was amazed! Beautiful Wide Screen print, sharp and clear which makes for an even more enjoyable viewing experience. I have watched this film easily twenty times since first discovering it back in the late 70s. Always a Chuck fan, my wife and I were fortunate enough to meet the great man when he visited Australia for a Literary Luncheon to promote his book 'In The Arena'. It's still hard to believe he was left us. From the opening shot this film will grip you.It starts off with a good twenty minutes of seafaring action before settling into a solid land based drama in the middle and returning to the sea for an action-packed finale. Featuring the dynamic duo of Charlton Heston and Gary Cooper with top support by Ben Wright, Alexander Knox, Emlyn Williams, Michael Redgrave, Cecil Parker and Virginia McKenna and a truly menacing turn by Richard Harris. A memorable sound track as well!

This movie certainly could have used a re-write on the script. While the main theme of the movie is wonderful, all the little pieces that make up the lot just don't add up together. Repeatedly, Gary Cooper's character does things that just don't make a lot of sense. And, for the most part, Charlton Heston just goes along with him--even though much of the time Cooper's character seems like a bit of a nutter! For these flaws, the film's rating goes down to 7. So, how does the film STILL merit a good score overall? Well, the plot is very unusual and makes a lot of sense once all the pieces are put together. In other words, although there are SOME disparate and inconsistent elements in the plot, it is all tied together wonderfully at the end--like a really good mystery. See it also because it's one of Cooper's last films and he generally did a fine job (aside from occasionally seeming nuts).

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.

Sometimes you can't help wondering why certain occupations produce so many accomplished writers -- pilots, seamen, and doctors, for instance. Maybe pilots tell good stories that are made into films because -- let's face facts -- what goes up must come down, one way or another. Doctors also can tell gripping stories about life and death decisions, and there's always blood involved. When was the last time a popular novel was written by a dermatologist? Seamen have the toughest time. They're not going to cash in on the audience's fear of flying, and they don't make decisions that, gone wrong, may fatally nick the subclavian artery. For sailors, they must heave the story up out of its marine context into psychology (eg., Conrad) or intrigue (eg., "The Wreck of the Mary Deare"). Storms at sea are fine, but you can hardly have a whole movie about a storm. "The Perfect Storm" was padded out with fiction. I guess "Typhoon" is all about a storm but to my knowledge it's never been filmed. Sorry. Kind of a tedious introduction, I know. "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" takes place basically in three acts. (1) Charlton Heston's salvage boat almost runs into a derelict freighter in the middle of a storm off the French coast. He boards her and finds Gary Cooper, the sole occupant, hostile and suspicious. They manage to beach her amid some mean-looking rocks. (2) There is a formal investigation of the wreck by the insurance company and a court of inquiry, amounting to a courtroom drama. Cooper unfortunately is cast as the kind of defendant who wants to shout out "the truth" but is constantly being told to shut up and sit down and stop interrupting the proceedings. (3) The only way Cooper's curious behavior can be justified is by examining the cargo in Hold Three. He and Heston don wet suits, swim into the hold, prove their point, and successfully fight it out with the owner's henchmen on board. Innes' novel has a harrowing opening act. Like Nicholas Monserrat he has an eye for capturing the dramatic detail. The film doesn't get it. Heston, climbing a line to board the heavily rolling Mary Deare, SHOULD BE swung back and forth like a weight at the end of a pendulum, slammed against the cold iron hull every few seconds. In the film it looks like he's climbing a rope in a high school gymnasium. Still, we get a good impression of what a hostile and unsteady environment a cold deck can be, filthy and dark, wallowing and sloshing. You can almost smell the rust. My memory of the novel is fuzzy after so many years but the film's middle act isn't bad. I did, though, miss John Williams as Sir Wilfred, the prosecutor or barrister or chief inquisitor or whatever he is. John Williams has played so many investigators and detectives I've lost track -- "Dial M for Murder," "Witness for the Prosecution," "The Paradine Case," "To Catch a Thief." It was a criminal act to give the role to somebody named Emlyn Something. Pardon me while I call my solicitor. The novel did not end with an underwater fight. That's a kind of a cop out. SCUBA diving was becoming a popular sport in the 1950s, replacing snorkeling, which was for wimps. And wet suits were still something of a novelty on screen. (Cf., "Thunderball.") I believe, though, that a good argument could be made in favor of women in skimpy bathing suits SCUBA diving, rather than bulky men in full wet suits. Women look slick and phocine under water, as if built for it. Men may look better while running, but women look better while swimming. (These silly generalizations are exhilarating. Everybody should make one a day. We'd all be happy campers. No more wars in the Middle East. No more atonal music. No more, "Will Jessica Leave Brad"?) See it if it's on. Fine special effects and miniatures for the period. And note the best performance in the movie, by Richard Harris as a smiling and snide villain.

***SPOILERS*** Seeing this cargo ship on fire and adrift in the stormy English Channel salvage tugboat Captain of the "Sea Witch" John Sands, Charlton Heston, decided to get on board and investigate to see if anyone is still alive on the boat. To his shock and amazement Sands is attacked, from out of nowhere, by this wild eyed and hysterical man who claims that he's the ship's only survivor! The what seemed like crazy man turned out to be the ship's third mate Gideon Patch, Cary Cooper,and the ship he's now in charge of is the "Mary Deare". Wih the "Mary Deare" taking on water and Sands stranded on it it's now up to Patch to steer it to the safely of the nearest French port. For some strange reason Patch beaches the "Mary Deare" on the treacherous Minquiers, or Minkies in English, coral reef off the Channel Islands! Patch is keeping what he knows about the "Mary Deare" secret planning to reveal what he knows at a naval court of inquiry. What's even more bizarre about Patch's actions he want's the totally ignorant Sands, who just went along for the ride, to play along with him! Even if by doing that would cost him his master ticket to be a ship captain! As we, and Sands, later find out there is a method to Patch's madness in his paranoia of what the purpose behind the "Mary Deare" string of accident that started when it left port in Rangoon Burma. ***SPOILERS***It secretly switched its cargo of jet aircraft engines to another cargo ship docked there. That ship just happened to belong to the Peoples Republic of Communist Red China! Patch knows that as long as the "Mary Deare" remains in tact he can prove that there was a plan by it's owner Grunderson, Peter Illing, to sell its cargo of airplane engines to the Communist Red Chinese and then have the ship sunk by a series of staged accidents by it's officer in charge Captain Taggart. The fact that Patch prevented that from happening has put him on the hot seat for being an incompetent sea captain as well as a possible accomplice, in Captain Taggart's mysterious death, to murder. The only way he can clear his name is have the ship-the "Mary Deare- checked for its cargo that which Patch, by having it stranded on the Minkies, has everyone thinking that it's at the bottom of the English Channel. By having the ship being investigated by a naval board of inquiry would prevent Grunderson's paid off goons lead by Higgins, Richard Harris, from making sure that it, and its missing cargo of jet engines, never get to see the light of day! P.S Even though at first intimidated by his co-star in the film Gary Cooper, whom he idolized, Charlton Heston held his own and in some scenes even eclipsed the legendary two time Academy Award winning actor. The movie turned out to be one of the last films the great Gary Cooper would ever make. Not knowing it at the time Gary Cooper was suffering from the early stages of terminal cancer that would eventually take his life two years later in May 1961 at the age of 60.

Where did the money for this film go? Over 2 and a half million dollars and they use what looked like toy ships. I have seen better special effects in laurel and Hardy films.

This is a great film Classic because of the great contributions that Gary Cooper gave to Hollywood on the silver screen and all his fans from the past and present. Charlton Heston, (John Sands), "Gideon",'99, gave a great supporting role as a salvage specialist who had great interests in the Mary Deare. However, Gary Cooper, (Gideon Patch), "The Naked Edge",'61, was the Captain in charge and had other ideas what he was going to do with his ship and a deep dark secret that was laying at the bottom of the ship. There is a great mystery looking at the foggy scenes of a ship fighting against the horrible waves of a rough ocean, with no course in sight. Virginia McKenna, (Janet Taggart), "Born Free",'66, was the daughter of the former Captain of the Mary Deare and had a very important letter from her dad that could possibly help Gideon Patch. This is by no means a typical sea story, there is plenty of meaning and depth to this entire picture. Enjoy good Acting from beginning to the very end.

Really good, sound drama with Gary Cooper and Charleton Heston involving the world of shipping and salvage. From the raging sea to the eeryness of an empty ship, to the court room and back it maintains a very good pace.

John Sands is the captain of a small rescue ship, one night he finds the Mary Deare drifting towards him. Sensing an opportunity for salvage rights, he boards her thinking the crew has long since gone. Yet the Mary Deare has one survivor, the enigmatic first officer Gideon Patch. Patch is acting strange and refuses to make sense when probed by Sands about the events on the ship, but as the two men steady the ship and come together, Sands agrees to keep quiet about the Mary Deare until the official investigation of the incident is heard on dry land. Gary Cooper (Patch) & Charlton Heston (Sands), two giants both in stature and iconic standing, come together here in a drama mystery that is awash with old fashioned values. Based on the Hammond Innes novel, The Wreck Of The Mary Deare fuses action and suspense and then cloaks it in a court room denouement. For practically the first hour of the piece we are left purely in the hands of Cooper and Heston, both men bouncing off each other with acting gravitas born out of sheer hard work, it really is a thrill to witness both men giving gusto. That this film is rarely mentioned in classic circles comes as surprise to me, I can only think that many feel that both the leads here deserved a better project? Maybe that this pairing should have produced a more memorable piece? Yet the film was a positive joy for me, a hark back to days when the effects masters had to graft and sweat for a desired effect, a time when men were men, a time when the likes of Gary Cooper got the job done in spite of illness. Also here a young fresh faced Richard Harris puts down his marker for the future, his Higgins is both arrogant and snide in equal measure. Although the accent is a bit bemusing to myself, it's a memorable turn that delivers all that's required. Emlyn Williams & Michael Redgrave flesh out the solid support, whilst Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters) directs with knowing and careful hands. The film feels as though it was released far earlier than 1959, but that is in no way a bad thing, in fact it's quite a pleasant surprise. 7.5/10