The Wreck of the Mary Deare
Directed by Michael Anderson
Written by Eric Ambler from a novel by Hammond Innes
1959/UK/USA
Blaustein-Baroda
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Gideon Patch: You listen! I didn’t ask you to come on board, and I’m in command here! Now, if you don’t like it, you can go over the side and swim![/box]
This has some good performances and special effects but in the end I was left wondering what Hitchcock would have made of the story.
John Sands (Charleton Heston) runs a small salvage ship with one other man. In the midst of a violent storm, they come upon the apparently derelict Mary Deare, which is billowing smoke and from which all but one lifeboat has been launched. Sands boards the vessel to see what riches they may be able to salvage from the ship. He is met by the half-crazed captain Gerald Patch (Gary Cooper).
Despite the fact that the ship is obviously in serious trouble, Patch will not accept assistance and orders Sands off his vessel. But the storm prevents Sands from safely departing and Patch must save his life. He stays on board and eventually follows orders until the two manage to wreck the ship on a rocky shore. Patch refuses to explain any of the suspicious circumstances until he can be heard from a court of inquiry. Sands reluctantly agrees not to reveal the location of the ship until that time.
When the men are finally rescued from the remaining lifeboat, Sands learns that Patch has quite a history with wrecks. Surviving crew members accuse him of panicking and unnecessarily ordering the crew to abandon ship. Patch desperately seeks to clear his name in the ensuing inquiry. With Richard Harris as a sadistic bad guy and Michael Redgrave as the attorney for the Ministry of Transportation.
This starts off strong with an intriguing mystery. It loses steam when the men reach shore and a fairly routine courtroom drama begins. Gary Cooper’s late-50’s haggard mien and intensity suits his character well and the mainly British supporting cast is quite good. The writing and pacing could have used more oomph, though.
This novel was one of the first projects Hitchcock was supposed to tackle when he came to the U.S. It was interesting to ponder what he could have done with it. In the end he and screenwriter Ernest Lehman could not come up with a satisfactory treatment so the problem may have been in the source material.
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