Rating of
2/4
Not quite the shipwreck it's often labeled.
Indyfreak - wrote on 09/19/18
This two fisted tale of a sea-captain (Cooper) and a marine salvor (Heston) teaming up starts out strong.
Heston's opportunistic scavenger comes across a derelict vessel nin the English Channel, finding only Cooper whose crew abandoned him to take the blame for the ship sinking. The former is won over by the latter's story of betrayal and they align to combat courtroom intrigue and dirty businessmen.
And this is where the movie does slow down in the second act thanks to a boring 'trial' with obligatory tests of character. Richard Harris has fun playing a villainous backstabber. Virginia McKenna (Born Free) appears out of nowhere then disappears just as rapidly.
The climax does have some pretty great underwater photography and claustrophobic action as Heston and Cooper don scuba gear to explore the wreckage. It's too bad the second section threaten derail the flow of the film. Amusingly enough, Hitchcock was initially attached to direct and left, believing the same thing.
THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE is not a total loss. Both Heston and Cooper make a cool pair of manly heroes.
