The Wreck of the Mary Deare (film)
| The Wreck of the Mary Deare | |
|---|---|
theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Michael Anderson |
| Produced by | Julian Blaustein |
| Screenplay by | Eric Ambler |
| Based on |
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956 novel) by Hammond Innes |
| Starring |
Gary Cooper Charlton Heston |
| Music by | George Duning |
| Cinematography | Joseph Ruttenberg |
| Edited by | Eda Warren |
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Production
company |
Blaustein-Baroda
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| Distributed by | MGM |
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Release date
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Running time
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104 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,596,000 |
| Box office | $2,815,000 |
The Wreck of the Mary Deare is a 1959 Metrocolor (in CinemaScope) British-American thriller film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston, and featuring Michael Redgrave, Cecil Parker, Richard Harris and John Le Mesurier. The screenplay by Eric Ambler was based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Hammond Innes.
The steamship Mary Deare is found adrift at sea by salvager John Sands (Charlton Heston). Sands boards it hoping to claim it for salvage, but finds the first officer, Gideon Patch (Gary Cooper), still aboard and trying to run the ship on his own. Patch has stayed on the ship in order to prove that it was sabotaged to collect insurance on cargo that had secretly been off-loaded at Rangoon. Patch convinces Sands to help him beach the ship, even though it will void his salvage claim. When they return to London, Patch is brought before a board of inquiry to determine what happened. It soon becomes apparent that the ship owners were planning to wreck the Mary Deare all along and have Patch as the fall guy.
The novel was optioned by MGM with the intention of having Alfred Hitchcock direct and Cooper star. Hitchcock had long wanted to work with Cooper, but after developing the script with Ernest Lehman for several weeks, they concluded that it couldn't be done without turning the movie into "a boring courtroom drama". They abandoned the idea and started a new story which eventually became North by Northwest.
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