Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

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

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Scarecrow-88 Cooper retains his commanding on screen presence in his shared screen time with the rising star, Charlton Heston, in this moderately entertaining adventure/courtroom drama. Cooper is an acting captain, Gideon Patch, abandoned by his crew as the cargo vessel, The Mary Deare, is apparently on its way to sinking. Salvagers, including Heston's Sands, see the ship and plan to possibly attain from it whatever value it might hold. Sands doesn't expect to meet Patch on board considering how badly maligned it looks, but that isn't even the beginning of what he will be a part of before the film is over.Airplane parts that were to be transported are believed by Patch to be the reason behind systematic ruination of the Mary Deare (explosions, among other potentially purposeful acts to sink the ship). When confronting his captain about the criminal activity he considers by the crew, Patch is dismissively defied of his concerns. What happens between Patch and this captain, how the crew leave the ship under suspicious circumstances, why Patch would want to purposely drive the Mary Deare into the dangerous French Les Minquiers coral reefs to conceal its location, a British court inquiry on what happened to the ship (and on board it), Patch's abilities at commanding a water vessel of any kind, Patch's needed alliance with a jaded Sands who continues to trust less and less in the *man alone*, and the eventual return to the Mary Deare of Patch to prove his theory is correct about the reason behind sinking the ship to Sands all factor as key plot developments that drive this film. Heston does show here it was only a matter of time before he would be a big star (Ben Hur was this same year), but he concedes to the absolute star power of a dying Cooper who is still a charismatic icon. I think the best part of the film is the opening of it as the friction between Cooper and Heston's characters are heightened by the ship's condition and ongoing weather conditions both dangerous to them (accompanied by the approaching coral reefs, as well). The ship itself looks quite damaged, taking on water and looking quite aged. Heston trying to help keep the ship from total decline and eventual sinking while Cooper seems dead set on beaching the Mary Deare produces hotheaded back-and-forth. I like that there's this obvious gradual build up of respect although distrust during the trial somewhat fractures the good will starting to emerge between the two macho stars.That integrity and pursuit of proving that a greedy slug named Higgins (a young Richard Harris) was chief among the crew in helping his company sink the Mary Deare really establishes another Coop character so symbolic to that very recognizable archetype he was known for throughout his career. Seemingly a man with the whole world against him, this is the kind of part that seems fitting at the very end of Coop's career (he'd be dead the very next year). Coop's assertive nature at the beginning as Heston inadvertently stumbles onto a major situation when boarding his ship, the latter becoming an unwitting participant in the Mary Deare's beaching and secretive location is intriguing. Also I think you can understand why Heston's salvager would be puzzled and frustrated with Coop's acting captain, particularly as the treatment and hidden agenda of the Mary Deare is concerned. The courtroom portion of the film, I understand, is important to build the plot and place Coop under a lot of scrutiny, but it kind of grounds the film after that really adventurous, thrilling opening involving the cargo ship and how it was under a severe deterioration due to how the crew treated her. I think Cooper gains our sympathy as a wronged man trying to identify a crime and use the inquiry as a means to expose corruption. The insurance that would've made the company a lot of money due to the ship's sinking thanks to the pricey cargo, Coop is up against a powerful entity. This isn't a bad MGM product, even if its superb opening kind of loses momentum when the two men return to land for the inquiry. Michael Redgraves is rather wasted as a lawyer, but Ben Wright is amusing as the tug boat captain of Heston's salvager, The Sea Witch. Wright has one of those captains who listens to everything his ship's mate has to say, and he's always around during the whole Mary Deare business as it involved a salvage so possibly valuable. While a capitalist, Wright's tugboat captain becomes a crucial ally to Cooper when all is said and done thanks to Sands' involvement. The stuffy inquiry and how Coop seems guilty by everyone, trying but failing to emphasize his innocence and spotlight criminal behavior through the series of happenings on the Mary Deare produces that gulp in the throat that proves its worth to the overall presentation of the film.

moonspinner55 Gary Cooper plays first officer of the steamship the Mary Deare, found drifting at sea by Charlton Heston, the skipper of a salvage vessel; Cooper says the crew abandoned ship after intentionally sabotaging the Mary Deare to collect insurance on her cargo, while the crew later claims Cooper ordered them off and was a negligent captain. Poor opening (wherein Cooper acts like a raving lunatic) and limp conclusion are redeemed somewhat by court of inquiry midsection, which at least provides for some good maritime melodramatics. The crew (hissable villains, a smug Richard Harris among them) are no match for a stubborn-but-honest merchant marine, so there's no surprise at the outcome, but the performances help carry the load. Square screenplay by Eric Ambler, based on the book by Hammond Innes, isn't the potboiler you may end up hoping it'll be. Handsomely shot by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg. Michael Anderson directed, without flair. **1/2 from ****

James Hitchcock "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" is a British film, made by a British director, based upon a novel by a British writer (Hammond Innes), mostly set either in Britain or aboard a ship in the English Channel, and with a predominantly British cast. And yet it stars two major American actors, Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. The reason, apparently, is that Alfred Hitchcock was originally slated to direct the movie, but pulled out, claiming that the novel couldn't be filmed without turning the story into "a boring courtroom drama." (Hitchcock was fascinated by crime, especially the psychology of crime, but the criminal justice process, whether it involved police work or the courtroom procedure, held little interest for him). The task of directing the film eventually went to another British director, Michael Anderson.The film's central theme, however, is a characteristically Hitchcockian one- the fight of a man wrongly accused to clear his name. The man in question is Gideon Patch, an American-born sea captain with the British Merchant Navy, who is accused of incompetence after his crew mutiny and abandon ship, leaving the vessel to sink; Patch alone remains on board desperately trying to save the ship. The structure of the film owes something to that of "The Caine Mutiny" from a few years earlier in that the action begins at sea and then moves to a court hearing on land. This film, however, begins in medias res when a salvage man, John Sands, boards the stricken and apparently abandoned "Mary Deare" in the middle of a storm only to find that Captain Patch is still on board. We never actually see the mutiny or the earlier part of the voyage, even in flashback, but hear about them later, both in the conversations between Patch and Sands and at the subsequent court of inquiry into the loss of the vessel. In order to clear his name, Patch needs to prove that the ship was sabotaged and the mutiny arranged by the owners as part of an insurance fraud. This was to be Gary Cooper's penultimate film- his last, "The Naked Edge" from two years later was also directed by Anderson- and he gives a fine performance. When we first see Patch on board the stricken vessel he first seems dangerously obsessive, perhaps even mad, but we later come to realise that he is one of the few men of integrity in this film. He receives good support from Charlton Heston as Sands. By 1959 Heston was a huge star- this was also the year of "Ben-Hur"- but he occasionally agreed to appear in supporting roles to work with a director or co-star he particularly admired. (For example, he had taken a fairly minor role in "The Big Country" just for the experience of working with William Wyler). There is also a good contribution from a young, per-stardom Richard Harris as Higgins, the ringleader of the mutineers. Anderson was something of an uneven director. He is most famous for having made "The Dam Busters", one of the most beloved of all British war films, but he also has some fairly second-rate entries on his CV, such as "Logan's Run" and "Orca" (which also starred Harris). "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" is also in some ways an uneven film. In one respect Hitchcock was correct; the courtroom scenes are not very interesting. Cecil Parker as the Chairman of the Inquiry is particularly dull. The main interest lies in the action sequences, particularly those near the beginning in which Patch and Sands are desperately trying to save both the storm-battered ship and their own lives. Although the film was made more than fifty years ago, the special effects are very well done and these sequences remain thrilling even today. The look of the film, shot in a muted palette dominated by greys, browns and greens, also seems appropriate to the film's theme of dark deeds and conspiracies. It would have been interesting to see how Hitchcock might have treated the story. His film would probably have been very different from Anderson's, but in one respect I am glad he never got to make it. After dropping out of this film he moved onto a new project which eventually became "North by Northwest", one of his greatest achievements. 7/10

Nazi_Fighter_David 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.'