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28 out of 32 people found the following review useful: A star amalgam of sea saga and courtroom melodrama with fine suspense values..., 17 November 2002 Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
The freighter 'Mary Deare' is set afire and abandoned by its crew during a storm on the English Channel... Gary Cooper is the only man aboard, until he is joined by Charlton Heston, whose vessel has been rammed through one night by the freighter... Heston is in the ship salvaging business and runs a tug called the Sea Witch... He believes that mysterious events occur on this boat... Cooper is deliberately trying to wreck the ship...At a London Court of Inquiry, Cooper is faced by many accusers and the mystery of the 'Mary Deare' becomes a major news item...At first, Cooper does little to aid himself, giving only evasive testimony... Finally, he and Heston swim beneath the wreckage on the reefs in search of evidence... 'Wreck of the Mary Deare' is really Cooper's film... His performance is strong but is possessed of a fanatic determination that carries through and works... Heston's role, that of the devil's advocate, is well played, although there is little to work with in terms of character... As opposed to Cooper who is out to redeem his name, lost by the suspicious murder of the ship's original captain, Heston's John Sands is a marvelous counterpart... All he is interested in is getting the salvage rights to shipping wrecks... He becomes involved in Cooper's situation but is emotionally impartial, being circumstantially tied to the situation, until he finally realizes that the man may be right justice, somehow, at this point overtakes Heston's preoccupation with making money and he becomes a more rounded character...I liked the scene when an evasive Cooper asks Heston not to tell the investigators that the ship is grounded... Heston asks, "Give me one reason I should trust you," and Cooper answers desperately, 'When you were dangling on the end of a rope over the side of the ship, you trusted me. Now," he continues, "I'm on the end of a rope. Do I have to beg you, Mr. Sands?"Heston says nothing, and when Mr. Petrie, the owners' investigator (played by Alexander Knox) starts asking questions, all Heston will say is that the forward bulkhead went and the ship could not be saved... He avoids the issue of the sinking, and Petrie sees through this immediately... Heston is uncomfortable having lied, but Cooper insists that the ship's location be kept a secret until the court of inquiry has had a chance to examine the wreck... Cooper won't tell Heston why he asks this favor...Based on a novel by adventure-master Hammond Innes, 'The Wreck of the Mary Deare' is a good film, curious, star amalgam of sea saga action and courtroom melodrama (originally intended for Hitchcock) with fine suspense values, good color photography and an able cast...Look for Richard Harris (1930-2002) who quickly earned a reputation as an interesting performer precisely in 'The Wreck of the Mary Deare,' 'The Guns of Navarone,' and 'Mutiny on the Bounty.'
17 out of 21 people found the following review useful: Piling the Ship On the Minquieries, 24 May 2006 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
The Wreck of the Mary Deare was the next to last film of Gary Cooper and it pairs him with Charlton Heston who was fresh off his Oscar from Ben-Hur. Between the two of them they were the heroes of six sound Cecil B. DeMille films. And this film does have some special effects old C.B. DeMille might have enjoyed.Salvage tug captain Charlton Heston based in the UK comes across an abandoned freighter named the Mary Deare. Only Gary Cooper, sporting a head injury, and acting very mysterious is on the vessel. When raging seas prevent Heston from reboarding his ship, Cooper saves his life by hauling Heston on board when he can't hold on to the rope.In the meantime Cooper completes his objective which was to beach the ship on a series of jagged rocks in the English Channel named the Minquieries. He's doing this because he suspects skullduggery from the crew and the late captain of the Mary Deare.Americans Cooper and Heston are given good support by a cast of players from the UK such as Emlyn Williams, Michael Redgrave, Alexander Knox, and Mary Ure. The villain of the piece is second officer Richard Harris in one of his early and acclaimed parts before he became a star.The Minquiries have a lot of legend about them. They are the top of an Atlantic based plateau. None of them are big enough to rate being called an island. Smugglers and pirates in centuries passed piled many a ship on them and looted the contents. Today the only thing on them are small fishing huts. They are a well known hazard to navigation.The scenes involving the wrecking and salvage of the ship are well done. Many years ago I saw a picture of MGM's special effects man Buddy Gillespie inside the tank with the model of the Mary Deare. It was an interesting insight into the special effects game on the high seas.Fans of both Cooper and Heston will like this film. I suspect C.B. DeMille regretted not having a chance to direct his two favorite leading men in a joint project.
13 out of 16 people found the following review useful: How'd they do that??, 15 December 2006 Author: MCL1150 from United States
I realize that great special effects shouldn't make or break a movie, and they don't here, but they ARE really terrific. The shipwreck scenes in the beginning of the film are not only great for 1958, they're great by today's standards too. I'd love to see a making of documentary. I'm so bored with the special effects "making of" docs of today. It's always that everything was first shot against a green screen, and then come the interviews with the SPX guys telling you what they did and how hard it was to do. "Yep, we just programmed the computer and went for coffee while it rendered the action". Yeah, really impressive. No computer here. This is the true essence of what used to be a CRAFT. Albeit scaled down, everything you see here on the screen actually existed in real life and not in cyberspace. I don't know if anyone will ever read this, or even care to compare, but watch the similar ship scenes in the newer version of King Kong and then compare them to what was done here almost 50 years sooner. IMHO, the scenes in the 2005 "King Kong" look more like a very realistic cartoon! Same thing with this years "Flyboys". The dogfights had a lot of great "camera" angles and thrilling sequences, but nowhere near as thrilling as done almost 80 years before for "Wings". And besides, that cartoon look clashes with the live action stuff. Yes, NOT using a computer WOULD have made things harder for the "Flyboys" and "Kong" crews, but if they're really any good they would have come up with better results! That's why the director of "The Fugitive" crashed a REAL train for the film rather than stoke up the computer chips. You really want real, you have to have real in there someplace! I really think that the film industry has it backwards. Huge budget films should spend all that money on the harder to do but more satisfying "hand crafted" SFX and leave the computer generated junk for the low budget flicks.
13 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Just seeing these two legends together on screen makes this movie worth a look, 23 March 2005 Author: Dave from United States
Anyone connected to the sea or anyone who just likes a good sea story is going to love this movie. This movie isn't Ben Hur or High Noon nor does it try to be, but this is still a very worthwhile movie. The opening scenes of this film set it's mysterious and eerie tempo, almost a film nourish character that carries the viewer through the movie. I particularly enjoyed the scenes depicting the ship itself and found them to be more realistic and believable and better shot than almost any other movie of the genre. I can only hope that one day this long forgotten film with be rediscovered and find a new audience in a DVD version.
12 out of 16 people found the following review useful: Wonderful drama with shipping theme, 27 January 2003 Author: tacquire from Visalia Ca
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.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: A satisfyingly old-fashioned nautical mystery, 17 July 2007 Author: TrevorAclea from London, England
The Wreck of the Mary Deare occupies an obscure place in film trivia – it was while supposedly struggling over an adaptation of this Hammond Innes yarn that Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Lehmann got so bored that they cooked up a spy story with cropdusters and Mount Rushmore instead. In the end the task fell to director Michael Anderson and writer Eric Ambler, and a pretty good job they did of it too. Gary Cooper's awkwardness is put to good use as the skipper of the abandoned cargo ship with too many secrets and a dead body under the coal stack in the boiler room while Charlton Heston's unyielding mixture of moody self-righteousness and callous selfishness as the salvage man who becomes his unlikely ally creates a few sparks. The solution to the mystery isn't that big a surprise, but it's a well-crafted affair, especially if you like storm sequences and good old-fashioned CinemaScope.Although not as good as the MGM/UA laserdisc release, Warner's Region 1 DVD boasts a good 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, though the absence of extras is annoying - especially since the interesting trailer, with specially filmed sequences with the leading players, can be found on Warners' Sergeant York disc.
7 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Excellent ... if letter-boxed, 20 March 2006 Author: panamint from United States
The night scenes are filmed very well but you must see them in wide-screen format or letter-boxed. For example, close scenes inside the ship at night are well filmed and staged, but literally won't make sense if not viewed letter-boxed. The outdoor sea scenes (almost all dark) are awesome, probably better than if they had been computer-generated. But again, the movements of the ships will not make sense if viewed other than letterbox. The story is largely told through movement- of ships, or of men moving around in the dark. I mention this to help any potential viewer.Cooper gives a compelling, desperate performance that makes you really want to watch what happens to his character, Capt. Patch. Also, this is probably the most believable performance by Heston as an ordinary, non-historical, non sci-fi character. I was pleasantly surprised by both Cooper's and Heston's performances. Both performances are essentially very modern-style screen acting, and are not dated after these many years.The supporting roles are undeveloped and one-dimensional, including the role so forcefully played by the young Richard Harris. Its a shame the great Virginia McKenna is so underused here. She could have made the film appeal to a broader-based audience. The other supporting actors (Alexander Knox at his most wooden) don't add to the film. Even if you don't like seafaring stories, watch this for the acting by the two stars, and for the marvelous night cinematography. Film students and buffs should look carefully at the night scenes inside the ship and on the docks. You will see true night cinema work, with perfectly set light meters and minimalist lighting. In other words: nighttime lighting and camera artistry, not gimmicks.
12 out of 18 people found the following review useful: Routine Sea Drama, 13 June 1999 Author: David Diamond (davastav@yahoo.com) from Great Neck, NY, USA
This film is an entertaining piece of drama for a casual viewing. It has Charlton Heston in probably his last supporting role during his prime acting portion of his career. This film was made after he completed filming on Ben-Hur but before it was released. Heston took a backseat to Gary Cooper in this one, who gives another solid performance. This was one of his last films and he looked a bit tired. As far as the film, an interesting story of a sea captain's negligence and an unscrupulous team of ship salvagers on Coop's last command. Special effects are first rate for 1959. No classic here though.
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Gary Cooper's Second to Last Movie, 29 December 2006 Author: janice143 from United States
I watched the Wreck of the Mary Deare last night on TCM. I agree with the other reviewers, for the most part. However, I just love Gary Cooper, and it was quite obvious that he was not well when he made this movie. He looked sick and it seemed that he was just walking through his part. He died from prostate cancer a few years after this movie was released.I remember the Oscar show when Gary Cooper got an honorable Oscar award and Jimmy Stewart accepted for him. Stewart was very emotional when he accepted the award on behalf of Cooper, so it was quite obvious that Cooper was seriously ill. And he was! With regard to Charlton Heston, he always gave a strong performance. And to watch him in the Michael Moore documentary, "Bowling at Columbine," was a sad sight to see! A lot of great actors and actresses in this movie, a lot of them gone.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful: High Seas Hijinks and Courtroom melodrama in one., 20 October 2007 Author: Scaramouche2004 from Coventry, England
The Wreck of the Mary Deare, is an exciting piece of cinema. Although not a masterpiece and it was clear no Oscars were going to be won here, we are with all presented with a classic yarn that has a montage of rich ingredients.The first forty minutes of the film is pure unadulterated peril on the high seas as salvage man John Sands (Charlton Heston) boards the apparently derelict "Mary Deare" during a massive storm in the English Channel.On investigation Sands finds that part of the ship has been burnt out and gutted and the entire crew have abandoned ship. Just as Sands is about to take his new prize in tow, Acting Captain Gideon Patch (Gary Cooper) appears, the one crew member to stay behind, put out the fires and fight the "Mary Deare" through the rough seas to safety.However it becomes clear to Sands, that reaching port is the last thing on Patch's mind as he purposely steers and beaches the ship onto the Minquieries, a plateau of deadly rocks - "a ships graveyard" Patch assures the confused Sands that this self destruction of his ship was done for a specific reason and begs Sands not to give away her final position until an official court of enquiry.Sands and Patch are eventually picked up and are met on shore by a gaggle of police and maritime insurance agents desperate to know the final fate of the "Mary Deare" and a rescued crew with an altogether different version of events of the one that Patch himself tells.Sly second Officer Higgins, brilliantly portrayed by the great Richard Harris tells of Patch's poor seamanship since assuming command and his panic at the fire and the rushed decision to abandon ship which has caused the death of so many of the crew.Sands then questions whether he has 'backed the right horse' especially as Captain Patch already has a reputation for 'losing ships' in the past. However he stays true to his word and fails to divulge the valuable information he holds on the final resting place of the "Mary Deare" There follows a maritime court of enquiry where after days of restraint, Patch is able to speak his piece and put the cat amongst the pigeons. Patchs testimony tells of how the ships fire and the evacuation was orchestrated by the "Mary Deares" owners and carried out by Higgins and other unscrupulous members of the crew, so that they can claim not only against the loss of the ship but also it's valuable cargo. However Patch is convinced and can provide the necessary evidence to prove that the real cargo had already been offloaded at Rangoon and replaced with crates of stone.This evidence is the substituted cargo itself, now secured in number three hold of the "Mary Deare". This he explains is why he beached the ship on The Minquieries, so she will lie in shallow enough water for the hold and the aforementioned crates to be officially examined thereby proving the deception. But when his calls for an official examination fall on deaf ears he and Sands take matters into their own hands and venture out to the "Mary Deare" to supply the said evidence themselves.Also Minquieries bound is the desperate Higgins, under orders from the the equally desperate owners to finally sink the tell-tale ship and silence Patch forever into the bargain.Can Sands and Patch prove the truth before Higgins and Co, or the ships final plummet into the murky depths take their lives? With notable support from Micheal Redgrave, Alexander Knox and Virginia McKenna, it is really an exciting couple of hours worth of cinema. From the high sea adventure through the courtroom drama to the typical finale of the good guys meeting the bad guys, The Wreck of the Mary Deare stands up as a good old fashioned ripping yarn.
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