Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams, Alexander Knox, Richard Harris, and Virginia McKenna in the ingenue role: what can possibly go wrong? In the dead of night, in heavy seas and high winds, a ghost ship looms up out of the darkness. There are no lights and no one on the bridge. The lifeboats are gone. But intrepid Charlton Heston, thinking of salvage, risks his life to board it. Despite this promising opening, the plot soon devolves into courtroom bickering of minor interest. Alfred Hitchcock and his writer, Ernest Lehman, wisely bailed on this project and were replaced by Michael Anderson and Eric Ambler. John Gregory Dunne referred to money as "Monster" in his book with that title. This movie is yet more evidence that Hollywood is about money, not movies.
Review of The Wreck of the Mary Deare
