This film is a maritime drama set, for the most part, on the English Channel: a small salvage boat finds a ship, apparently abandoned and adrift after a fire. But what seemed like an excellent business day for the crew became a mystery when they discovered the captain alone on board and apparently decided to take the ship to dangerous shallows and rocks that could make it sink.
The film is simple, in that there is nothing complicated in the story told and does not have major twists and turns. The mystery is quite evident right from the start, but we continue to see in order to understand how the villains are going to be caught and what kind of entrapment the ship's captain has devised to do so. There are quite obvious problems and flaws, just as there was material and potential to do more and better. The ending is, surely, the least well done and appealing part of the film, which would have gained from being entirely set at sea and ending with the arrest of the villains. Still, the film is worth it for what it is.
The cast has three great artistic names, who probably will not have kept great memories of the film. Charlton Heston brought the main character to life and left us with a dignified and restrained interpretation, although it was far from brilliant. The actor makes good use of his charisma, but the character is not particularly well-built. Gary Cooper, in one of his last works as an actor and already very weakened by the disease, deserves applause for his hard work and for his dedication and willpower. Michael Redgrave and Richard Harris also appear, in smaller characters, making a limited contribution to a film designed to emphasize the duel between two charismatic characters, intense and with antagonistic personalities and personalities.
Technically, it is a warm and uninteresting film. The maritime scenes are elegant and the ships have all the charm of the steam era, but that's it. Cinematography is regular and fails to take advantage of the momentum of the waves to occasionally and in a restrained way make us feel the waves crashing on those ships. The light also seemed to me to be faint and faint, even in scenes shot in broad daylight. The soundtrack is uninteresting and almost absent.
The film is simple, in that there is nothing complicated in the story told and does not have major twists and turns. The mystery is quite evident right from the start, but we continue to see in order to understand how the villains are going to be caught and what kind of entrapment the ship's captain has devised to do so. There are quite obvious problems and flaws, just as there was material and potential to do more and better. The ending is, surely, the least well done and appealing part of the film, which would have gained from being entirely set at sea and ending with the arrest of the villains. Still, the film is worth it for what it is.
The cast has three great artistic names, who probably will not have kept great memories of the film. Charlton Heston brought the main character to life and left us with a dignified and restrained interpretation, although it was far from brilliant. The actor makes good use of his charisma, but the character is not particularly well-built. Gary Cooper, in one of his last works as an actor and already very weakened by the disease, deserves applause for his hard work and for his dedication and willpower. Michael Redgrave and Richard Harris also appear, in smaller characters, making a limited contribution to a film designed to emphasize the duel between two charismatic characters, intense and with antagonistic personalities and personalities.
Technically, it is a warm and uninteresting film. The maritime scenes are elegant and the ships have all the charm of the steam era, but that's it. Cinematography is regular and fails to take advantage of the momentum of the waves to occasionally and in a restrained way make us feel the waves crashing on those ships. The light also seemed to me to be faint and faint, even in scenes shot in broad daylight. The soundtrack is uninteresting and almost absent.