Secret of Deep Harbor (1961) User Reviews

What sounds through its title like a nice little gothic thriller is nothing but your routine low budget crime yarn.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 28 August 2020]

The performances are decent but the characterizations are OneNote in this typical crime drama that Warner Brothers could have made with gusto 20 years ago. It actually was a remake, a little B independent film that Claudette Colbert starred under the title of "I Cover the Waterfront". Here it is Merry Anders as the daughter of tugboat captain Barry Kelley who is transporting criminals from Mexico. When one of the criminals is killed in a fight with the crooked Grant Richards, Kelley becomes worried he'll be the next victim.

Anders' reporter boyfriend, Ron Foster, becomes involved nobody involved in an investigation which has stitches threatens to expose Kelley as an accomplice. As the Story begins to get a little deeper, Kelly is worried he will be exposed and decided to take desperate Measures to keep himself from being prosecuted. This leads to a confrontation between him and Foster, bringing on a violence conclusion.

This independent thriller was one of several dozen such crime dramas that play the lower half of double bills in the late 1950's and early 1960's, minor poverty row film noir that focused on atmosphere and less on believable, intriguing situations and fleshed-out characters. Future sitcom character actress Billie Bird tries desperately to steal the film with her eccentric comic style, but her character here seems to be intrusive although she does have one great moment where she slaps down a waterfront dame creating problems in her dive bar. This is obviously second-rate, and one that will easily be forgotten.

Cahn's Grime-Free Grimy Crime Drama

[boblipton · 4/10 · 27 April 2024]

Someone has been smuggling wanted men out of the country, and the authorities think they're going through the waterfront. Ron Foster is the reporter or perhaps the stringer for that section of the city, and he wants out. He came thither originally so he could write a book, and now he's trapped. But he's found Merry Anders, and that makes it all worthwhile. Except that her father, Barry Kelley is the only charter boat captain around not going broke. Foster figures he's been carrying the Syndicate's people away. Except that the latest one has just turned up, shot and sunk with chains attached to an anchor from Kelley's boat.

It's a remake of I Cover the Waterfront, based on Max Miller's book. Given that it's a Robert E. Kent production, it's a cheap affair, and it shows mostly in the lack of atmosphere; the dive bars and living quarters are grime-free, except for the windows. As usual, Edward L. Cahn directs efficiently, and as usual in his last few years, when he was directing four or five movies a year, it's not very good.

Waterfront covered again

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 26 October 2014]

Secret Of Deep Harbor finds Barry Kelley doing quite well in Southern California while his colleagues are barely getting by. There's a good reason for that, he's got a nice sideline smuggling gangsters across the Mexican border.

But one night Grant Richards who is in charge of the smuggling kills one of the gangsters. It's an ordered hit, the man was stealing from the syndicate. But with Kelley on board now a witness to a murder that sets in motion the whole plot of this film.

Really though I would think that Richards would not be wanting witnesses and that would be easy to arrange by killing him after he's in Mexico. But then we wouldn't have a story.

Which is that investigative reporter Ron Foster is on the waterfront looking for confirmation about gangster smuggling and he finds it after helping Merry Anders home with her drunken father Kelley. I don't need to draw you a blueprint to figure out the rest.

This is a remake of the famous Claudette Colbert classic I Cover The Waterfront and the original was so much better. This one was like a stock company from Peoria production of the original.

Watch the one with Colbert.

A sweet little dull film

[searchanddestroy-1 · 18 November 2012]

That's the last post 1950 Edward L Cahn - or L Can't - films I missed in my collection. I now have them all, shot after 1950. Pre 50, that's another story. Especially the 40's except MAIN STREETS AFTER DARK and DANGEROUS PARTNERS. But maybe, one day, I'll get them all.

Edward L Cahn, one of my B movie directors favourite.

Speaking of this rare gem, that's not a masterpiece, as you can guess. A short adventure, noir, crime yarn, telling the story of smuggling and fishermen. A love story, between the lead and the old fisherman's daughter involved with gangsters, bring some soft touch in this OK little programmer. Not the Edward L Cahn's best or worst features. The usual stuff for movie buffs used to this kind of cinema.

C picture with acting to match

[adrianovasconcelos · 2/10 · 21 July 2021]

SECRET OF DEEP HARBOR clearly suffers from low production values and cheapness. The script makes no sense, with the real killer and syndicate man smoking a bad egg in the beginning and never resurfacing; an apparently decent fellow, boat skipper, getting drunk and then beginning to try to kill people, with a pretty daughter who falls in love with a useless newspaper reporter.

Photography is very poor, action sequences are unbelievable, and direction uneven. Worst of all, pretty boy and leading actor Ron Foster can't act to save his life. No clear emotion comes out of his facial expressions, and he is not helped by portraying a character who seems to love a woman, then wants to blow town, then will do anything to get a story for the paper, and then gets side-tracked with drinking binges.

Real waste of time, but not of talent - no such thing as talent in this flick.

Apart from the film making hardly any sense at all....

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 30 April 2021]

At first, "Secret of Deep Harbor" looks like a pretty neat crime film. However, as the film progresses, you can't help but think that there must have been two different writers...one for the beginning and a chimp who wrote the rest. Yes, the film becomes THAT bad.

When the good part of the film starts, a local boat captain is making some bucks transporting a wanted mobster down to Mexico. However, apparently this mobster also happened to betray his friends....and his partner kills him and drops him overboard. Well, the captain was shocked by this...but goes along with the killer and keeps working for the mob.

At about this same time, a crusading reporter is lurking about and dates the captain's daughter. However, when he learns that the captain was involved, he does what any non-stupid person would do...he tells the police. But the captain's daughter is mad at the reporter...even though her father is 100% guilty. What's next? Well, who really cares!?

So much about this film sucks towards the end and it was as if the writers took drugs or were chimps...it was that bad. Many such poorly written things included: the captain stabbing a cop in the chest and the cop just pulls out the knife and continues working the case, the captain's daughter being mad at the reporter for writing up the story and acting as if he was the villain while her father was an accessory to murder and he tried to murder a cop, the reporter confronts the captain and the captain shoots him and then they talk like old pals and, finally, at the end, after the captain's daughter tells the reporter many times she hates him, they got married and moved into a home...much like Ward and June Cleaver. By the end, I was ready to toss a book at the TV...it became that ridiculous!