I giganti del mare

John Sands is the captain of a small rescue ship, one night he finds the Mary Deare drifting towards him. Sensing an opportunity for salvage rights, he boards her thinking the crew has long since gone. Yet the Mary Deare has one survivor, the enigmatic first officer Gideon Patch. Patch is acting strange and refuses to make sense when probed by Sands about the events on the ship, but as the two men steady the ship and come together, Sands agrees to keep quiet about the Mary Deare until the official investigation of the incident is heard on dry land.

Gary Cooper (Patch) & Charlton Heston (Sands), two giants both in stature and iconic standing, come together here in a drama mystery that is awash with old fashioned values. Based on the Hammond Innes novel, The Wreck Of The Mary Deare fuses action and suspense and then cloaks it in a court room denouement. For practically the first hour of the piece we are left purely in the hands of Cooper and Heston, both men bouncing off each other with acting gravitas born out of sheer hard work, it really is a thrill to witness both men giving gusto.

That this film is rarely mentioned in classic circles comes as surprise to me, I can only think that many feel that both the leads here deserved a better project? Maybe that this pairing should have produced a more memorable piece? Yet the film was a positive joy for me, a hark back to days when the effects masters had to graft and sweat for a desired effect, a time when men were men, a time when the likes of Gary Cooper got the job done in spite of illness.

Also here a young fresh faced Richard Harris puts down his marker for the future, his Higgins is both arrogant and snide in equal measure. Although the accent is a bit bemusing to myself, it's a memorable turn that delivers all that's required. Emlyn Williams & Michael Redgrave flesh out the solid support, whilst Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters) directs with knowing and careful hands. The film feels as though it was released far earlier than 1959, but that is in no way a bad thing, in fact it's quite a pleasant surprise. 7.5/10

I realize that great special effects shouldn't make or break a movie, and they don't here, but they ARE really terrific. The shipwreck scenes in the beginning of the film are not only great for 1958, they're great by today's standards too. I'd love to see a making of documentary. I'm so bored with the special effects "making of" docs of today. It's always that everything was first shot against a green screen, and then come the interviews with the SPX guys telling you what they did and how hard it was to do. "Yep, we just programmed the computer and went for coffee while it rendered the action". Yeah, really impressive. No computer here. This is the true essence of what used to be a CRAFT. Albeit scaled down, everything you see here on the screen actually existed in real life and not in cyberspace. I don't know if anyone will ever read this, or even care to compare, but watch the similar ship scenes in the newer version of King Kong and then compare them to what was done here almost 50 years sooner. IMHO, the scenes in the 2005 "King Kong" look more like a very realistic cartoon! Same thing with this years "Flyboys". The dogfights had a lot of great "camera" angles and thrilling sequences, but nowhere near as thrilling as done almost 80 years before for "Wings". And besides, that cartoon look clashes with the live action stuff. Yes, NOT using a computer WOULD have made things harder for the "Flyboys" and "Kong" crews, but if they're really any good they would have come up with better results! That's why the director of "The Fugitive" crashed a REAL train for the film rather than stoke up the computer chips. You really want real, you have to have real in there someplace! I really think that the film industry has it backwards. Huge budget films should spend all that money on the harder to do but more satisfying "hand crafted" SFX and leave the computer generated junk for the low budget flicks.

Although Gary Cooper doesn't appear on screen for the first ten minutes or so, this movie is clearly his. Charlton Heston is billed second, and while his part is substantial, Cooper ultimately gets the meat of the movie. It's downright striking when Cooper, as Patch, first appears. This sea-wary captain looks nothing like the dapper romantic lead we associate with Cooper. He's grizzled, tired and dirty from head to toe. Cooper never got his universally-praised swan song moment before he passed, mainly because critics at the time panned a wonderful little movie called Love in the Afternoon based solely upon the age difference between Cooper and Audrey Hepburn.

You may not even notice, but there's very little dialog for the first forty minutes of this movie. There's such an eerie feeling, and so much going on visually, that dialog isn't even necessary. The special effects are stunning in this film. Everything in this picture, unlike contemporary movies, looks utterly believable. The beginning in particular has a few breathless sequences which certainly stand the test of time visually.

This picture is directed very capably by Michael Anderson; it nearly became an Alfred Hitchcock production before Hitchcock decided to make a little film called North by Northwest instead. No matter, Anderson, of Logan's Run and Around the World in Eighty Days fame, does a fine job at the helm. Heston plays his part, Sands, very well; free of the grandness and scope that people usually peg him for from the epics. Richard Harris also takes the villain role which could have easily come off as silly and made it dangerous and creepy.

I give this movie a 9 because I think the script could have used a couple lighter moments between Cooper and Heston. The ending scene, while a little short, was especially well-done. It takes on added emotional weight by the fact that this film would be Cooper's second to last. Watch this movie for Heston. Watch it for Harris. Watch it to see the pairing of two heavyweights in Cooper and Heston, but especially watch it for Cooper.

Really good, sound drama with Gary Cooper and Charleton Heston involving the world of shipping and salvage. From the raging sea to the eeryness of an empty ship, to the court room and back it maintains a very good pace.

Anyone connected to the sea or anyone who just likes a good sea story is going to love this movie. This movie isn't Ben Hur or High Noon nor does it try to be, but this is still a very worthwhile movie. The opening scenes of this film set it's mysterious and eerie tempo, almost a film nourish character that carries the viewer through the movie. I particularly enjoyed the scenes depicting the ship itself and found them to be more realistic and believable and better shot than almost any other movie of the genre. I can only hope that one day this long forgotten film with be rediscovered and find a new audience in a DVD version.