The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) [Gary Cooper: The Signature Collection] – DVD

***/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams
screenplay by Eric Ambler, based on the novel by Hammond Innes
directed by Michael Anderson

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Here's another Coop-travaganza whose pleasures lie naked on the surface. Like Springfield Rifle, Michael Anderson's The Wreck of the Mary Deare is largely uninterested in subtextual undertow or other fodder for term papers, announcing its true intentions by casting strong, silent Cooper opposite hard man-of-action Charlton Heston–the two movie stars least likely to quietly brood or have an Achilles heel to render them even a little unsympathetic. Though Coop has a shady past to overcome, it's largely in the aid of martyring him to a system that refuses to listen; Heston, meanwhile, is possessed of the old I-have-a-hunch-to-trust-the-underdog brotherhood instinct that keeps us trusting despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Students of gender politics (assuming there are any left) might want to put it through the symptomatic wringer, but mostly it's a couple of cool dudes laying down the law and fighting insurmountable odds.

Those odds have to do with the freighter ship the Mary Deare, on which salvage operator John Sands (Heston) stumbles hoping to score big, only to find lone holdout Captain Gideon Patch (Cooper) inside the damaged vessel. Bad weather precludes Sands from returning to his tugboat, meaning he'll have to make the trip home with Patch. Without a radio and headed straight for a reef, they run aground and boat out to safety, and Patch begs Sands not to divulge the location of the Mary Deare so that he might prove in the ensuing inquest that the cargo of plane engines was switched and funnelled to the Red Chinese. Will Patch's bad past and inability to explain bring both men down to ignominy?

The film's structure, once common, is today very rare to come by. Patch is the prime mover of the narrative, but he's viewed through a glass darkly by audience surrogate Sands–and it's thanks to Sands that the audience feels ennobled by association with the older man's lost cause. This telescopic protagonist has been thrown by the wayside for Joseph Campbell/Syd Field ideas about central heroes and their journeys; and though one can't really say that the movie is avant-garde by comparison, it sure would be less interesting without that conceit. Minus the surrogate hero, The Wreck of the Mary Deare would ask you to identify with a doggedly unpleasant person who's largely thwarted until the climax–and would exhibit less of the warmth created by the Sands-Patch association.

But this is to weigh down the film with significance. For the most part, The Wreck of the Mary Deare moves at a leisurely clip and lets you revel in the central relationship–which is not the same as exploring that relationship. The movie simply wants to be a yarn about two guys and a ship, so much so that it downplays the Communist intrigue angle to become a story of outcasts retaining dignity. There's a nice supporting turn by up-and-coming Richard Harris (who'd go on to take another doomed voyage out to sea for director Anderson in Orca) as Higgins, the lead slimeball amongst Patch's treacherous crew, and it's just as nice to see Michael Redgrave appear as a lawyer during the inquest. The whole thing is light to the touch and fairly forgettable, yet never dull. It's not a must-see, but seeing it is pleasurable enough.

THE DVD
Another great catalogue reissue from Warner: the 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced image is well-handled, with some deep, saturated colours that resist bleedthrough and do not detract from the fine detail; it's remarkably sharp under the murky circumstances. The Dolby 1.0 mono sound is almost as good, perhaps a little faint and with slightly less definition than is ideal. There are no extras.

105 minutes; PG; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 1.0, French DD 1.0; CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Warner