The Wreck of the Mary Deare*
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
Directed by Michael Anderson. 105 mins. (1959)
Gary Cooper – Gideon Patch
A disgraced merchant marine officer remains aboard a sinking cargo ship to prove it was deliberately scuttled, risking his life to restore his honor and uncover the truth behind the doomed vessel.
Also starring Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams, Cecil Parker, Virginia McKenna, Alexander Knox, and Richard Harris.
Based on the 1956 novel by Hammond Innes. Charlton Heston, a longtime admirer of Cooper, readily ceded top billing and later recalled Cooper’s determination to perform portions of the demanding underwater sequences himself despite declining health. Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman briefly considered adapting the novel before turning instead to North by Northwest.
MARIA’S NOTES
Not knowing what the next film my father was to do, our family was in the South of France on Cap d’Antibes and my mother, ever the adventurer, got the idea to hire a teacher and we all learned how to scuba dive. Of course, we did it all wrong – my mother and I foolishly and vainly did not want to get our hair wet – so we dove with our bathing caps on only to learn later we could have burst our eardrums!
But we loved the sport and back home took proper lessons from certified professional divers who then, after “graduation,” took us out on their boat to Catalina Island where we dove in the ocean swimming between the massive forests of kelp beds looking for groupers, sand sharks and Moray eels. My father loved it and one weekend we found ourselves a tourist attraction when the Marineland of the Pacific aquarium invited us to come and swim in their big tank which was home to hundreds of fish of all sizes enclosed in glass walls at every level so the visitors could look in and see Gary Cooper – wife and daughter – swimming and weaving our way among the giant turtles and Manta rays.
So when The The Wreck of the Mary Deare was presented to my father to do as a film with his old friend Charlton Heston, he jumped at it. It is a gripping story and it gave my father a chance to do his own stunt work and use his newfound skills underwater. Acting through a facemask and a breathing tube is a real challenge. He was able to do all his own shots though a little more difficult than falling off a horse.
Maria Cooper Janis