Welcome To 1975

Craig 0:03

You're listening to Basket Traffic.

Shawn 0:10

Hey everybody, this week on our podcast, we're going back to the year 1975. So this is the year that Jive Talking and Bohemian Rhapsody topped the charts. It was also the introduction of the pet rock bad. I think Craig had one of those. And this year also saw the end of the Vietnam War with the fall of Saigon and the resignation of Richard Nixon. And the number one movie in the world was, of course, Jaws.

Travel Updates And Jamaica Stories

Craig 0:36

And I look forward to telling you about the incredible World War II story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and what it took for the crew to survive five days at sea. Spoiler alert, sharks will be involved. Okay, I know those out there have been asking why have the episodes been so slow to come out in the last couple of times.

Shawn 1:15

And by they you mean one person.

Craig 1:19

And I just want to say it's not you, it's us.

Susie 1:23

It's us.

Craig 1:24

Between our travels around the world and Sean's masturbation schedule, we've had difficulty coming together.

Shawn 1:32

It took him two weeks to write that joke. I guarantee you, he went with how do I say that? And he overanalyzed the shit out of it.

Craig 1:41

You don't know me, Sean.

Shawn 1:42

No, I'm I'm I'm free. My masturbation schedule is wide open right now.

Craig 1:47

So that wasn't it. So it really was just us our travels.

Susie 1:51

I think so.

Shawn 1:52

Welcome back. Oh, you're you're you're traveling. So where did you guys go this Jamaica?

Susie 1:58

Epic journey.

Shawn 2:04

That's how fucking lame and old we are. God will let it that out. I'm gonna throw up in my mouth right now.

Craig 2:12

I always like that song.

Shawn 2:13

I know that's why I'm gonna throw up in my mouth right now. Welcome back. How was your trip? How was your trip?

Craig 2:19

Phenomenal.

Shawn 2:20

You guys went down. Um amazing.

Craig 2:22

Yeah, right. Um the Jamaican people, outstanding. Yeah. Yeah. I uh you know that I heard a lot of uh words like one love, uh respect.

Shawn 2:33

Okay, and these are on the t-shirts that you bought at the tourist um place you were because we never left the compound. You're a real man of the people, dude. Wow. You're like, can I get another Dacri and I'll take that Bob Marley t-shirt? Thanks. Well, great.

Craig 2:51

Um, okay.

Shawn 2:52

So you had a good time. Yeah. How was it? How was it? Uh you said to me um you got emotional. Was that overline food or what what what are you talking about? Because you can get diarrhea from that stuff, yeah.

Craig 3:06

It was a beautiful thing. The people, I'm I'm not kidding you. It was so nourishing. They are they're special.

Shawn 3:12

Wait, weren't you at a resort? Yeah.

Craig 3:14

But the workers we interacted, and there are I thought you were talking about like the people of the earth, yeah.

Shawn 3:20

Farmers and the people on Jamaica that you're you're at a resort. So the guy giving you a massage.

Craig 3:25

Well, and it was that we m we were just a couple of times out of the resort, you know, not much, but uh we knew we we talked too many Jamaicans, and they're just so lovely. I mean, what did you think, Susie?

Susie 3:37

Well, like you would walk up in the morning and you know, go to go order your coffee, and they'd they'd just you'd say good morning, and they'd say, hello, beautiful. It's a be, you know, and I'm like, oh, like I'm just not used to people responding that way. And then it kind of takes, you're like, oh, and then I'd look around, oh no, I'm the only one here. Oh, you are talking to me. Like, wow, you know, and then I'd go, Oh, thank you. Uh, could I have my two lattes, please? And how are you? And how's your day? And they're like, happy to be alive and so grateful for another. It's a great day. It's a great day.

Craig 4:11

We're alive.

Susie 4:12

Nobody fucking says that here.

Shawn 4:14

No, they'd throw hot coffee in your face if you said hi, beautiful, and they'd probably sue you. No kidding. Yeah. And uh verbal abuse.

Susie 4:23

There's no, there's no, it's a great day to be alive. That never happens here. So it it just was, and I mean, of course, the sun is up every day. Is it though?

Shawn 4:33

It's really hot out today. Is it a great day to be alive? I don't know.

Susie 4:36

Before it gets too hot in here, it's good.

Craig 4:38

Yeah, and anyway, that was the essence of our experience. And and to the point where we did not want to leave.

Shawn 4:43

So you guys just chilled out, you relaxed. Did you do like some extra curricular stuff, like yoga and like that kind of no yoga?

Susie 4:52

We did a little snorkeling and a lot of them by.

Shawn 4:55

Oh, so you were in the ocean.

Susie 4:56

We oh yeah.

Shawn 4:57

Because I was really hoping, uh, sorry, I was really hoping for the uh point of this podcast that Craig got eaten by a shark, or at least attacked by a shark. Not fatally wounded, but just attacked, because it'd be great for the podcast.

Craig 5:09

Yeah, it would have worked. Yeah, yeah.

Shawn 5:11

But you couldn't have lathered yourself up with something and splashed around a lot.

Craig 5:16

Well, we gave the fishies a lot of opportunity. We floated all the time.

Shawn 5:20

Yeah, beautiful, I bet.

Craig 5:21

It was so great.

Susie 5:22

Just stunning and they the curl reefs out there.

Shawn 5:25

Yeah, yeah, we did go uh snorkelings. Did you bring some back, some of the curl reef? Yeah, right. I was telling you. That's illegal. Yes, that's illegal. I was gonna bust your ass.

Susie 5:35

Actually, the guide when he went down, the guide was down there and he's grabbing at stuff, but I didn't know it was the guide because I didn't know he was coming in the water. There was just like six, eight people on the boat, and I thought it was one of the tourists, and I was like staring down there, and I'm like, what's he doing? He's touching it, you're not allowed to. And it was the guide.

Craig 5:54

We got to see a centuries-old anchor. Um cannon.

Shawn 6:00

Oh, sorry. Sorry, what were you saying?

Why Jaws Still Hits Hard

Craig 6:03

Well, I was just trying to, you know, anchor the naval theme based on this episode. Because we are doing an episode on the movie Jaws.

Shawn 6:13

It's yeah, it's exciting, and not just the movie, it's 50th anniversary of the film. Yeah, so exciting stuff.

Craig 6:19

Before I get into my story about the USS Indianapolis, I wanted to just quickly talk about the movie came out what year, Sean?

Shawn 6:28

1975.

Craig 6:29

1975.

Shawn 6:30

74, 75 was supposed to be released in the winter, actually. Right.

Susie 6:34

But because of the pushbacks from the movie, which we'll talk about, uh, it was released in the summer, which is Oh, well, how much more perfect to release it in the summertime and just terrorize the world of the ocean.

Craig 6:45

I was two years old when the movie came.

Shawn 6:48

I guess that means I'm I've either got drugs on my face or I need to pull the microphone up closer.

Craig 6:55

It was the latter. Ah, okay. So yeah, I was two years old. You were four.

Shawn 7:00

It was 35.

Craig 7:02

And you were six, two four six.

Shawn 7:04

And yeah, so big movies like that sort of didn't come out in the summer, really, because uh the you know, most of the movies came out when it was colder out. We didn't have the air conditioning thing down yet, right for the for the theater. So who would go into a hot room to watch a movie? So they were mostly B movies that were released in the summer. Until like I think it was like Bonnie and Clyde and those kind of movies started coming out, late 60s, they started to bring in the refrigeration. And these big theaters would have the refrigerated, you know, signs outside. And so, you know, that's when sort of Jaws really took off here the summer.

Susie 7:37

I'm thinking probably my siblings and my parents would have gone to see this at the Park Royal Theater or the West Van Odean.

Shawn 7:45

A hundred percent. Yeah, because the first time I saw it would have been on VHS. I think my first intro into Spielberg's world would have been Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's 1981. Yes, and then E.T. Yeah, 1982, and then I would have gone backwards and seen all of this stuff.

Craig 8:00

Yeah, which I can't imagine at two years old I was watching Jaws.

Shawn 8:04

So it would explain a lot if you did see it.

Craig 8:08

True story, I could not get into the bath after I watched that movie, especially if there were bubbles. I was so fucking terrified about what was underneath that water, yeah, I couldn't get into the bath.

Shawn 8:19

Well, people didn't go into the ocean that summer, like it was a massive worldwide sort of fear that was created.

Craig 8:25

I get it, because when you're young and your imagination, you see that thing as a young kid, you're like, whoa, this is serious.

Shawn 8:32

And and and swimming in the ocean, and of course, we grew up with the little ocean beach right by us here. We used to go as kids, and you would always be out there, and then wouldn't you hear that music in your head? Yeah, and then immediately funny story is that in Australia, apparently they play that theme music when there's a shark sighting. Shh because people don't listen to the the person talking, no kidding. So you can imagine being in the water and hearing doo-doo. You know that if you hear that, that there's a shark that's been spotted, and people get the fuck out of there, man.

Craig 9:03

No kidding.

Shawn 9:04

If somebody's going, ah, there's a shark spotting, and then you know.

Craig 9:07

Talk about a movie having a cultural impact.

Shawn 9:09

And not just the movie. How about that poster? Growing up, I remember that poster, and there it is on the book, which we'll talk about to Peter Benchley's novel. But that poster was in everybody's room that I grew up with, and it was on t-shirts. And now, of course, it's the 50th anniversary, so I'm seeing it pop up again. Oh, yeah. It's such an iconic image. It's gotta be one of the most iconic movie images of all time. I'm trying to think of other ones, like, of course, Star Wars New Hope, you know, like that one is big, and NET and Raiders are like a lot of the Spielberg 80s stuff is really. But but that Jaws poster uh is just and you know, it's just iconic. It just immediately pops into your brain if somebody brings up Jaws, the poster and the music together. And you can imagine John Williams like playing Steven Spielberg those two notes as he comes into the room to say, Hey, I've written something for Jaws, and he does the da-da on the piano, da-da. And Spielberg's like, You're joking, right? This is a joke, right? Yeah, it's genius. Like, like, like he's going, You're gonna ruin my movie. And he goes, No, no, Steven, no, no, there's more to it. It's gonna be. Just just just do it, just, just you know, and he was right all along it. He would go on to win an Oscar for it, too. Wow, John Williams.

Susie 10:24

I had that that small beach where we grew up had a where we walked the logs, yeah, to the to the wharf. The wharf and the logs. And if you as long as you fell or swam or were on the inside of the logs or the raft, I was like, we're safe.

Craig 10:40

Yeah, even though there was no netting.

Susie 10:42

There's no netting.

Craig 10:43

It's all psychological, you know.

Susie 10:44

Totally psychological.

Shawn 10:45

Because the shark can't swim under the logs.

Susie 10:47

Oh, no, no, because that's the safety of our beach. And then you'd fall on the other side and be like, okay, get back. Okay, I'm safe now.

Shawn 10:54

It's true though. I remember swimming at that beach and be and having that same feeling. And I remember they found like one of the world's largest uh squid or octopus. I think it was squid. Oh right, or maybe it was octopus. I think it was octopus, but right off the beach. And and this is in the 70s or the 80s, and and I was being oh my, it was kind of the Jaws effect. Like this thing could come up and swallow the wharf.

Susie 11:16

Like, oh, there's there's real shit down there.

Shawn 11:20

There's creatures that this is all real. It's not just an idyllic, we did we did revisit the movie together. Yeah, we watched, we had a movie night over here and we re-screened for because we knew you know we were gonna be talking about it again. And you when's the I mean, when's the last time you've seen Jaws before that?

Susie 11:37

The first time. So the first day in the 80s. I I have not re-bouffed.

Shawn 11:42

I watch it every year, so it's just ridiculous. I might now I got a problem.

Susie 11:46

I might watch it again.

Shawn 11:47

Yeah, I watch it probably once. I try to watch it on the around the the fourth of July because that's when it takes place. Oh, yeah. I try to watch it once a year. Sometimes it's once every two years.

Craig 11:58

So yeah, I mean that's why Sean's into cinophilia.

Shawn 12:00

I I am. I love to, I want to fuck sharks. I don't know what that means, but yeah.

Craig 12:08

A lover of cinema.

Shawn 12:09

It's something k kinky like that. Well, yeah. Okay.

Susie 12:12

Lover of cinema. All right.

Shawn 12:13

Anyways, that was great. We we got the uh the licorice nibs. We got the you guys did some popcorn up, we did uh junior mints. I mean, we had it all going on. That's right. And we watched it again. What was your what was your kind of feeling watching it again?

Craig 12:26

It was the cinematography, the brilliance of it for a movie coming out of the 70s. It was the pacing, the acting, it was uh the editing, which yeah which won an Oscar, by the way, the editing. Yeah, I I forgot how good it was for a movie from the 70s, and it just speaks to Spielberg.

Shawn 12:44

Uh-huh. If you read the book, which I'd never read before, so I was so curious to read it, you see how much Spielberg took that movie and made it his own. Like it's it's really different from the book. Yeah, it's really different. So, yeah, I mean, you're seeing a genius at work and 28 years old, dude. And the only guy cocky enough that age to go, yeah, I'm gonna shoot a movie out in the Atlantic Ocean. First movie to do that. Oh, it was always on the back lot, it was always in a tank. They never went out in the ocean because you can't control the ocean.

Craig 13:16

So I'm gonna start off this episode talking about the connection to Jaws and the USS Indianapolis.

The USS Indianapolis Secret Mission

Shawn 13:23

Yes.

Craig 13:24

Um, this story I'm very excited to tell. So, Susie Sean, like past episodes we've done, I like to I like searching for incredible stories of the not so well-known individuals of history, and this is definitely one of them. It's about a man named Captain Charles Butler McVeigh, and it's about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945, a ship that was on a top secret mission. And I'll finish this piece of history with how this tragic historical event is linked to the movie Jaws. Now, some of the accounting of the story will come from the book In Harm's Way, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, and the extraordinary story of its survivors. I will be providing an outline of the account, but if you're interested in a deeper dive, I do recommend getting Doug Stanton's book, which was a New York Times bestseller. So this story will not have a happy ending for McVay because he'll be charged with negligence in his command and brought to trial. And it is noteworthy to mention here that of the nearly 400 captains of U.S. ships, he will be the only one to be court-martialed whose ship was sunk by an act of war.

Shawn 14:26

It's bad last name to have, McVeigh.

Susie 14:29

McVeigh.

Shawn 14:30

You know, that's a bad last name to have. You know the McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh. Oh McVeigh. There's a link here. Is that grandpa? Is that great-grandpa? Grand No Grandpa? I don't know. Maybe not. Anyways, go on.

Craig 14:42

So I'm going to tell the story in three sections. First, the Indies mission leading up to the sinking, second, the sinking itself, and then third, the aftermath. Now, let's set the stage here. Let's go back to 1945 July. And I want to take you to the military shipyards just a few miles north of San Francisco. Now, in preparation for its next and subsequent final mission, the USS Indianapolis was undergoing extensive repairs because of it suffered a near-fatal kamikaze attack off the island of Okinawa and therefore had to limp 6,000 miles back across the Pacific for repairs. Now, Captain McVeigh, who was chosen to command the Indy, just came out of an early morning meeting at U.S. Naval headquarters. He was given very little information about his next mission, other than it was for a special purpose, and that the envelope he was given could not be opened until after they had set sail. Certainly the crew of almost twelve hundred were naturally kept in the dark. Most believed that they were returning to war to prepare for the landing invasion of Japan, but their goal was unique. At this point, the war in Europe was over. The Germans had surrendered two months earlier, but the conflict against Japan continued to rage, and the nature of fighting was different. The Japanese soldiers were infamous for never surrendering, and they preferred death over capture. And now the US military was preparing for the potential loss of approximately a half a million men of a one million strong force to successfully take Japan. But there was another option and a potential outcome. The Americans had up their military sleeve a new secret weapon, the atomic bomb. And the USS Indianapolis was chosen as the ship to deliver their radioactive goods to a little island called Tinian. The same island the Indy had helped to capture against the Japanese months earlier. Now, a little about the boat. The Indy was a heavy cruiser, and it was designed to run and gun the enemy in placements on land and to blow enemy planes out of the sky. It was a floating city nearly two football fields long, and large enough to lay siege to a city like San Francisco. The ship was smaller than a battleship, but larger than a destroyer. The latter, however, were designed to set be sub-hunters. Whereas the Indy wasn't. It wasn't even outfitted with sonar, but it was fast and capable of reaching up to 33 knots. Speed, however, came at a cost, and the Indy's hull was thin in comparison to other ships, and it needed to be flanked with destroyers to keep it protected from submarine.

Shawn 17:28

So it was it was vulnerable. Yeah, I remember hearing this that it needed other boats to protect it. Yeah, it's a lot of people.

Craig 17:34

And how do I required a flotilla? Yeah. Each boat has its own uh specialty, if you will.

Susie 17:40

And it's two football fields long. That's not a tiny flotilla to support and protect.

Craig 17:45

It's like a city.

Shawn 17:46

So you're sitting duck, uh, if you've got these submarines out there. Oh yeah. Yeah, basically. And you don't have these books. You don't have these boats, uh, which eventually I don't think they do, to protect you, right? Afterwards.

Susie 17:57

And that's why those other boats have sonar?

Craig 18:00

Yes. So they destroyers were equipped. They're there.

Shawn 18:03

They're there to protect that boat and that payload.

Craig 18:06

Now, in mid-July, under radio silence, the Indy left San Francisco and headed towards its destination across the Pacific. It unfortunately wasn't totally prepared for battle. The water condensers, which were nor necessary to produce steam for the four turbine engines, were still malfunctioning, and therefore all potable water had to be reserved for the engines. The crew had to make do. McVeigh then gathered his officers and told them of their secret mission without giving specific details. Everything seemed as it should be, except the only unusual situation was the Indy had received back in San Francisco very special cargo, a wooden crate, and a canister. Inside the crate were the components of the atomic bomb, Little Boy. This meant that the Indy was also carrying the highly radioactive uranium 235, which was estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Susie 18:58

Back then.

Shawn 18:59

Yeah. They should have looked at the box, so it said fragile dangerous cargo. Cargo. Dangerous cargo. Which reminds me they explode.

Craig 19:07

Wasn't there another Spielberg movie where they that 1942. They let they put this very important crate on a ship at 1942, isn't it?

Shawn 19:16

Ah that's the World War II when he did the comedy.

Craig 19:19

Oh, I don't remember it anyway. That just came to mind. Of course you don't.

Shawn 19:23

Why would you? Do you do you even know we're doing a Jaws retrospective right now? Anyways, go on.

Craig 19:31

Oh God. Okay. So overall, the sailing from San Francisco to Tinian was uneventful. It had arrived safely, it anchored and had successfully delivered its precious cargo. Precious cargo that will cause the death of approximately 140,000 individuals in Hiroshima on August 6th. Incidentally, Tinian was one of the main islands from which B-29 superfortresses took off for bombing raids on Japan. It must have been quite a spectacle to see all of this activity. But more importantly, also all the activity, the high-ranking officers on the island eager to see the Indy arrive safely, which they viewed as key to saving many American lives and hastening the end of the war with the delivery of this cargo. It's almost as if the Indy was important until it delivered after that it seemed inconsequential. So six hours after arriving at Tinian, the Indy raised anchor, next destinations, Guam and then Leyte in the Philippines.

Shawn 20:26

And then Club Med. Wrong Cruise .

Craig 20:32

This is where things go awry and where the communication breakdowns begin. Although communications of the Indy's travels were sent to many different command units throughout Guam and Leyte immediately after its departure from Tinian, there will ultimately be a series of comedic errors that will be brutally fatal for it and its crew. Most notably, according to Stanton, there was a needless political war taking place in the highest of ranks between Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur, who were both apparently locked in their own battle for control of the Navy. And the fallout of this meant information of ships' whereabouts could be misreported or mismanaged. Like, for example, if there was a need for her destroyer escorts through sub-infested waters. Thus many commanding officers in charge of the Pacific Theater will in the end have no clue to the Indies' whereabouts when it will be struck by two torpedoes on the night of July 30th, which incidentally marks the eightieth anniversary to this very day of our recording. So days before, when McVeigh requested an escort, he was denied and was told it was unnecessary. McVeigh was also not told from top secret ultra intelligence reports that Japanese submarines were in fact operating along the same route as Indy's next path, another breakdown in communication. En route, McVeigh was given orders to zigzag. Zag during the daylight hours. But at night he was given discretion based on the level of visibility. So submarines are very vulnerable when surfaced and have real difficulty with identifying targets during inclement weather. However, lurking tens of feet below the waters near the Indy was the I-58, a state-of-the-art Japanese submarine. Captain Hashimoto had been patrolling the seas for four years without a single kill and was desperate to end his dismal streak. On board were 19 torpedoes and six Caitons. The latter being piloted by crewmen. Do you know what a Kaiten is? That's crazy.

Susie 22:36

No. I do not. How do you spell it?

Craig 22:38

K-A-I-T-E-N. It's basically a human man-powered torpedo.

Shawn 22:47

So these guys get so there's a guy in there?

Craig 22:49

A guy gets into this 48-foot tube, sits in this little canvas chair behind a steering wheel, and they shoot him out. And his job, he's basically a suicide bomber.

Susie 23:03

Kamikaze.

Craig 23:04

Yeah. But in water. And this thing basically his job is to drive this thing, which is apparently is incredibly difficult to do, and keep it on track to target ships, enemy ships. And what's crazy is if he fails to hit the ship, there the submarines don't have any ability and any ability to pick him up.

Shawn 23:26

So well, I mean, that's that's moot, anyways, isn't it? Because he's going to die, right? So yay, I changed my mind. Exactly. So coming at me. I'll meet you on that island over there. Coming around. The club men over there.

Susie 23:40

Coming around.

Craig 23:41

So if he misses the ship, it runs out of fuel and then just starts sinking. And he and the the Caiton will implode by the sea's ocean's pressure. Yeah. That's insane. What a job. No kidding.

Shawn 23:55

And these guys were absolutely good health care from that, though. Good dental and health care.

Craig 24:01

For the family. Oh boy.

Shawn 24:03

No, there are there's no dental left for the guy. Literally.

Craig 24:09

Now dark, McVeigh had given the command to stop zigzagging across the ocean, and in his estimation, the weather was poor enough to do so. And around midnight on July 29th, McVeigh went to bed. Hashimoto, on the other hand, had been notified of the Indy's presence. Six torpedoes were loaded at 12.04 AM on the 30th. He fired all six at three-second intervals. Contact took less than two minutes to struck the indie. Now I'm not going to get into all the details of what happened next and the chaos that ensued on board. I suggest you read Doug Stanton's book for that. All I'll say is that two torpedoes did enormous damage. One had nearly cut the indie in half, and the other had ripped its bow apart, and the forward motion of the boat meant that it was taking on huge volumes of water. The whole vessel will disappear from the surface in minutes. Also, thousands of gallons of fuel oil began discharging. It didn't take long before the realization that everything was lost. Eight minutes after the strike, McVeigh gave the order to abandon ship. Four minutes later, it'll be gone. Wow. Of the 35 life rafts on board, about 12 made it off the ship. The rafts were supposed to be outfitted with water and food rations, but the quick departure from San Francisco meant provisions were inconsistent. The bottled water was mostly foul. On the positive side, there were a boatload of life vests. Of the crew of 1,200, roughly 300 went down with the ship immediately, and 900 managed to get off it into the oil-covered water.

Shawn 25:48

And Jack and Rose were on a door, a floating door.

Susie 25:52

Oh God, the oil-coated water. I can't, I know where we're going.

Shawn 25:56

Uh yeah. Go.

Five Days Adrift With Sharks

Craig 25:58

Before McVeigh abandoned the ship himself, he tried to send one more SOS signal, which was successfully sent, but because they weren't able to reply to the corresponding message from headquarters, the SOS was ignored and viewed as a Japanese trap. McVeigh then expected to die when the rush of water hit him, but he was instead sent out to sea without being ripped apart against the sinking ship. The Indy disappeared all in twelve minutes. At this point, I'm not going to mention any names of the crew except for Captain McVeigh against Danton does that brilliantly. Monday, July 30th, day one, floating in the water. Things immediately went poorly for the crew floating in the inky darkness of night. Half of the 900 had life vests, and those who had found out quickly that the oil had begun eating at the seams of the vest, which caused them to leak. The vests also were only intended to last for 48 hours before they became waterlocked. Organisms in the sea immediately began gnawing at the boy's exposed flesh. The ocean itself is basically a mild acid bath. Swallowing ocean water could easily spell death as potassium in the water begins breaking down red blood cells, leading to anemia. Even inhaling salt spray could be lethal, leading to the accumulation of fluid in the lungs causing heart issues. But of course, the main existential fear was what was drawn up from the deep. By noon on Monday, a whole array of shark species began circling the floating survivors and will prey on the boys for the next five days. Those floating in the water, sailors began feeling bumps on their legs from below. The sharks were already swirling around.

Shawn 27:56

Tiger sharks. And they were the most voracious.

Craig 28:00

As if this wasn't bad enough, these were men who already had massive burns to their bodies from the exploding ship and/or broken bones. Now, sharks apparently often tracked ocean-going vessels and fed on whatever was thrown overboard. Unbeknownst to the living floating that Monday night, the sharks were already mostly feeding on the dead. It will be their turn soon. The naked were more exposed to the sharks because of their color contrast. By Tuesday morning, the harsher reality became apparent when survivors would wake from their sleep finding their legs cut and bleeding from the shark's dorsal fins crisscrossing underneath them, which then drew smaller tropical fish that would then feed off the men's flesh. More starkly, men would wake up only to find the guy next to him half missing. Sharks, according to Stanton, have a bite strength that measures 15 tons per square inch. And then their internal muscle structure allows sharks to tear away flesh without releasing their jaws. And then, as quickly as they arrived, the sharks disappeared later that day. Sharks weren't the only concern. Dehydration caused skin to become rubbery. Cool ocean water, especially at night, caused hypothermia. The bright sun caused photophobia. By later Tuesday, many who had previous injuries had died. Around the two-day point, many survivors were now considering suicide as their only acceptable solution. Many were becoming delirious. Many watched in disbelief, as others simply untied their vests and let go and sank without a sound. For some, the dehydration became so bad that the young men convinced themselves that the salt water was fine to drink, and they did. But it was a death sentence. Wednesday, day three, the men begin losing it and began attacking their own. Some attempted to drown others or stab each other with pocket knives or gouge their eyes out with their fingers. For those who were still lucid, they needed to find a place that was safe, but also meant leaving the floating raft of madness and therefore expose themselves to sharks. What do you do? Others dug deeper to find reasons to keep fighting to survive. And by Wednesday, according to Stanton, boys had been dying at an average rate of one every 10 minutes. About half of the 900 were still alive. There was also the issue of long-term exposure to salt water. Now, as you guys know, what happens when you have a bath for too long or stay in the pool? I take a shower.

Shawn 30:39

I don't know.

Craig 30:40

You get wrinkly. Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. Okay. Within 24 hours, however, your skin may peel and feel spongy, but by day three of constant water exposure, your skin literally sloughs off your body.

Shawn 30:52

It just breaks down and just That's why I exfoliate and I use um L'Oreal. Um cream. If they want to send me some free stuff, you know, uh fine with that.

Craig 31:04

So these boys are experiencing basically the epidermis is detaching from the dermis to the breakdown that's the skin.

Shawn 31:11

Epidermis, so people know.

The Risky Rescue From The Air

Craig 31:12

Of breaking down of skin proteins, which is now exposing muscle and fascia. Oh God. So that's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were the days of rescue, but it's a long one. GPS, of course, didn't exist back in 1945, and so technology was limited. Captains of ships were still using some techniques from a century earlier called dead reckoning. Dead reckoning is a navigation method used to estimate a vest vessel's current position based on a previously determined position, advancing it based on known or estimated speeds or lapse time and course directions. Wow, that was too much.

Shawn 31:47

I think I just went um cross-eyed.

Craig 31:49

Yeah, yeah.

Susie 31:50

So I'll sound like a whole big question mark of guesswork.

Craig 31:54

Oh, is that exactly what it is? Yeah. So it wasn't accurate, but it was something. And so planes used it too. So any aircraft that didn't have the new antennas to provide accurate bearings needed to rely on dead reckoning, which is unreliable and dangerous for planes if not carefully managed by its pilots. Fuel is a difference maker between life and death. At least a ship can float without fuel. Interestingly, it was this antenna that kept losing its windsock to keep it working that led to the discovery of an oil slick in the water by an American plane that was designed to hunt submarines. The plane crew assumed it to be a damaged Japanese submarine. The pilot then immediately readied to bomb the area. He came in low for the drop, but what he saw instead was people furiously waving and splashing the water with their bodies totally covered in oil. And the reason why they covered their bodies in oil is because it protected from the sun. The pilot then made another sweep, but this time dropped life rafts and other emergency equipment. The pilot at 1125 radioed an emergency message to search in recon reconnaissance headquarters. The pilot wagged his wings to send a message to the survivors that they'd been seen. This was extremely comforting because the boys had already seen so many planes fly over without any notice of them. Their spirits boomed. Apparently, in the excitement, some flapped their arms so excitedly they drowned themselves in the process. Oh, bomber. That's not good, dude. No. I'm kidding. What followed next was an extraordinary act of rescue. Various pilots and captains began making decisions of rescue without getting approval from their superiors. They just took action and did what they thought was necessary. Planes, because of their speed, were the first to the scene, but they were limited to their ability to drop emergency equipment. I mean, this what follows is really quite extraordinary. It was still going to take hours for ships to arrive, but shortly after two other planes known as PBY5As had the capability to land in calm waters, not the rough seas that they were experiencing. But the rescue crew in these planes from above could see the shark circling below, so they felt they had no choice but take the risk and land. The landings just about ripped the planes apart. They started taking on water. So it was necessary to bail while pulling the bodies out of the water. They were placed in the fuselage and on the wings wherever there was space. These planes will never fly again and will be sunk when the ships arrive. But they at least allowed for the rescue of many. And when the ships did eventually arrive, it was all hands on deck. And during their rescue, pulling the boys out, some of the survivors were hallucinating so badly that they had to be coaxed with wild stories to lure lure them on board. Oh god. They didn't believe it.

Shawn 34:42

Yeah.

Susie 34:43

So these planes landed, but never just it was just a place for people to be in or on and out of the water.

Craig 34:51

It was like a floating vessel. Wow. It turned that thing into a floating vessel.

Susie 34:55

Wow.

Craig 34:55

It was one of those stories when the plane came in, it hit the wave so hard that it bounced up 30 feet before coming back down again. And in that process, the riveteds popped and water started coming in through the rivets. I mean, but that was the risk these guys were willing to take to save their guys. Yeah, guys. I mean, it just gives me goosebumps.

Shawn 35:14

And there's many examples of that throughout the war, like different examples, like on land and in water, people coming back to rescue people.

Court Martial Guilt And Exoneration

Craig 35:22

Right. So by Friday morning on the fifth day, Captain McVeigh of the Indy and his men had finally been found. Over the many over the days, many groups had drifted tens of miles apart, making their rescue efforts more challenging. But in the end, of the 1,195 crew members, only 320 had survived. It is figured that about 200 were victims of shark attack, an average of 50 a day. In all, 880 men were lost. The survivors were loaded onto the ships and were given immediate medical attention. The ships were continued to collect the dead floating in the water. The swirling of sharks was so intense that the riflemen on the boat had to shoot to drive them away. It was madness, and the rescued crew were beyond shocked at what the survivors had to endure. Few days later, little boy was dropped on Hiroshima. Now, during the weeks of recovery, the military was already in the process of its investigation, and McCain knew that it wasn't likely going to end well for him. His crime, he failed to zigzag. The other charge, failure to abandon ship in a timely manner. Twelve minutes he had.

Susie 36:30

Yeah.

Craig 36:31

Tough, diff tough one. Yeah. Really? Difficult, brutal one to call. What is it? Eight minutes is appropriate? Is it seven? Like and when all communications in the ship were destroyed, it was a crazy circumstance. It was an untenable situation for McVeigh. So the question as to why the men had to float for five days without rescue was not considered by the court, the Navy was not on trial here. There is a great deal of interesting detail uh I'm leaving out here, so I suggest you read in harm's way. But even though the evidence against McVeigh was weak, and despite the crew ultimately supporting their captain, McVeigh received a court martial. His nightmare was made worse when he began receiving hate mail around the Christmas holidays from families mourning the loss of their sons. Mail that he kept to his death. Captain McVeigh tried to move on from his terrible ordeal over the years, but he always lived in this torment. His career was destroyed, and the guilt of seeing so many die under his command never abated. Now let's fast forward to 1999 when a Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing and ultimately exonerated McVeigh, but his court martial stood. It wasn't until 2011 or sorry, 2001, when the Department of the Navy finally exonerated McVeigh, fifty-six years after the sinking. This meant a great deal to the crew and others who worked tirelessly to achieve the exoneration, but McVeigh wasn't alive to experience it. In nineteen sixty-eight, apparently gripping the hate mail that he kept all these years, he stepped onto his front steps of his house with his pistol in hand and permanently ended the grief he felt all these years. Now, if you remember in the movie Jaws, the harrowing story that Captain Quint told, you must now appreciate it even more. Captain Quint, by the way, was apparently the inspiration from one of the survivors, a man named Bob Gauss, who returned to Florida as a commercial fisherman and a shark hunter.

How Quint’s Monologue Was Written

Shawn 38:30

Yeah, interesting. And they also made um a movie in in the I don't know when it was 2010 or maybe it was later than that, USS Indianapolis with Nick Cage playing the captain. And it's you know, no offense, I love Nick Cage, but it's not a very good film. But and there's where you directly see that story that you just told.

Susie 38:51

I feel like we saw that.

Shawn 38:53

I don't you probably saw it. Yeah, maybe it was on Amazon Prime. But, anyways, long story short, they use, of course, they use an inner cut with with real shark shots and then CGI. Oh, which of course you you know, and and it looks so bad seeing the CGI, you know, and that's why if Jaws was made now, yeah, it would be it wouldn't be Jaws because they would have overused the shot the shots of the CGI. The shark would be in the whole movie, right? Yeah, but that's it's an interesting thing. And um, that it that story you just told us was all classified for years, and then it just became unclassified right before they started to shoot the movie Jaws. And so that story is not in the book. No, it is there is no backstory for Quint's character. He's just a fisherman and he's out there. Yeah. So Spielberg and the studio, after I think they felt like they needed more meat on the bone for the character Quint. So uh there's actually an uncredited. Let me get my notes and my glasses on here. There's actually an uncredited writer called Howard Sackler who came up with that, who who read that story and and and came up and put that into the movie. He took a crack at the at writing it, but 10 guys took a crack at writing that monologue. One of them was Bob Zmeckis, Back to the Future, you know, then Bob Gale, who's also a producer on Back to the Future, um, and also um Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver. So they all took shots at writing this Quint monologue about that story, The USS Indianapolis. And John Millius actually wrote like a 10-page monologue about it. John Millius wrote Conan the Barbarian and he wrote Apocalypse Now. So he he and so Robert Shaw gets this monologue, it's 10 pages. He goes, I can't talk for 10 pages. He's like, so let me take a crack at it. Robert Shaw, who plays Quinn, is actually a Hewlitzer Prize nominated playwright. Did you know that? No. So Robert Schm is a man of the theater. He's old school stage, right? Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, hard-drinking, like loving life kind of theater actor. Yeah. And so he writes, he takes all those words and he puts it down into like three or four minutes. And he right takes a crack at it and he nails it, right? Wow. So isn't that amazing? It went through all these things, wasn't even in the movie or in the book, I'm sure. And so they come up with this incredible story that, you know, is you know, from what you just told us, which is just amazing to me. And so the first night they go to shoot this, Shaw convinces a 28-year-old Spielberg to let him drink, to have a few drinks, because that's the character. And the three men are drinking on the mode of prayer. Yeah. So he gets fucking lit. He gets hammered to the point where they have to carry him off the set and back to the hotel room. No kidding. So they have to stop production and Spielberg. He calls Spielberg in the middle of the night, basically, wakes Spielberg up and he's like, I hope I didn't embarrass you. Spielberg tells him, tells this story now. He says he thought it was so sweet that he was worried that he embarrassed him. Yeah. Not him himself, but did I embarrass you, Steven? Like they come back, they do it the next day, and they do it uh in one day, that whole scene. And I think they do it in three or four takes. He nailed it, there's one take apparently that he just nails it. Just does it. And Dreyfus says to this day, that wasn't acting for Dreyfus. He was watching this, like just him tell this story, and he's just enamored, like he's just hooked into this story. Like there was no acting going on there. Yeah.

Craig 42:23

Well, that's what I remember when we re-watched it. I got caught up in the same thing because he didn't know. What was your thinking about that? Yeah. Uh just just the energy, not the energy is the the the weightiness of it. Yeah. Yeah. You do felt it. And uh uh I I've forgotten because I was really young when I saw it, I did not appreciate, you know, the actor who uh the way he delivered that story.

Shawn 42:43

It's it's pretty amazing. And then, you know, I think that because there were so many production problems on that film with the shark not working, because the shark was built to work in and not in saltwater. No, so I mean, all these or rough water or rough water and so it's one of those things where because of all of these, I don't want to say happy accidents, but because of all of these problems, it actually gave them all this time to to juice up the actual movie and and do all these incredible acting scenes because the shark wasn't working. The shark would have been in 75% of the film if it worked.

Craig 43:19

I'm glad that didn't wasn't the case because that's the thing. It's brilliant. What made that movie so impactful is not seeing the shark is the imagination that you're hearing the music.

Shawn 43:28

How about the barrels, the barrel scene, right? Where so we can't see the shark, so we're gonna use the barrels, right?

Craig 43:33

And that was also, I would say, the second most impactful part of that movie was actually you you knew there was something lurking, so your imagination just went wild. You you created in your head this idea that this thing was like 30 feet long or something.

Susie 43:46

Same as in the book, like you, you're you you're in this story, and it is just like you're turning the pages, waiting, and they're just taunting you with more the barrels and the stories and. Then you know, a d a move, just one movement below.

When The Shark Broke The Movie

Shawn 44:03

And it was it's funny though, speaking of the book, because revisiting, you know, reading the book for the first time, it is so different than the movie. And first of all, the characters are really unlikable.

Susie 44:16

Yeah.

Shawn 44:16

They're really unlikable. Okay, let's just like mind blowing here. Cooper sleeps with Brody's wife. Yes. They have an affair. I know. Can you even imagine that in the movie? They have he fucking fucks Brody's wife. Yeah.

Susie 44:29

And then Brody's like trying to figure out what's going on. Not like while he's supposed to be focusing on the shark. On this shark, and he's just jealous as hell. He doesn't.

Shawn 44:39

It's a real, real book, actually. Yeah. And then and Brody doesn't close the beaches down at first because he doesn't want to. He he he's with he's with the mayor, and he's with we need to keep it open for the money.

Susie 44:49

Like it's a completely different, and there's too many people that they really get into that, don't they? They rely on the on the summer people.

Shawn 44:58

The summer people versus the all-around people thing. There's this class kind of thing going on, too. So it's very interesting. The other thing is the mayor's tied into the mafia in the book.

Susie 45:07

Yeah.

Shawn 45:07

That he's got he owes them money, and like, like, so he can't close the beaches because they need to make the money to pay the mafia. It's it's it's wild, man. So what I meant was like when you see the movie, you go, wow, Spielberg really took the idea, but then made it his own. Yeah. Like created it, made this whole thing himself, you know?

Susie 45:26

Now that I've read the book, I would like to watch the movie again. Right. Because I had never read it before and I hadn't seen it since I was probably 10. So yeah, it's worth a re-review.

Shawn 45:36

It's pretty wild, um, all of that stuff.

Susie 45:39

Uh but it took you back really nicely to this time in the world where kind of almost innocent. Didn't you feel like we're allowed to play and the parents were doing their own thing. They were there, but you know, and and they were looking, but not reminds me of my childhood.

Shawn 45:56

So the the book wasn't big though. It wasn't a big seller. And then the movie came out and it was going to paperback at the same time, and then it just exploded. Yeah.

Craig 46:03

Well, I have to say it was kind of funny. I'm I'm on the beach and I'm reading this book, Jaws, and this woman comes up and she says, Really? Jaws?

Shawn 46:12

Yeah, because you're on the beach. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig 46:14

Yeah. And uh great. It was funny. I'm like, well, you know, it is the 50th anniversary after all. And she's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn 46:21

And then you said, listen to our podcast coming next week. Yeah.

Susie 46:25

I did not read it while we were beside the ocean, and I'm glad I didn't.

Craig 46:28

Yeah.

Shawn 46:28

So one of my favorite things we when we re-watched it together was watching you guys, because I see it all the time, but watching you guys react to to the Ben Gardner scene, which is in the ocean at night when they go diving under the boat to to see there's some damage to the hull. And watching you guys with that that jump take.

Craig 46:48

Yes. Right? And it got me again. And I don't jump very often these days, but damn, that says something about that movie, man.

Shawn 46:56

So so that was uh a shot that was added later. That was not in the original film after they they rapped. And and I guess test screening and all that kind of stuff, they felt like they could use something like that. And so they they shot that scene where the head, spoiler alert, the head, Ben Gardner's head comes through the hull, uh, the hole in the hole. Yeah. They shot that in Verna Field, who's the editor, in her swimming pool.

Craig 47:19

Oh, no kidding.

Shawn 47:20

So she had a little pool house where Jaws was edited, by the way. Spielberg and Verna Fields, who won an Oscar for this, uh, edited this whole movie in her little pool house in Bandai's, California. Oh my god. In her little rancher, little rancher house. Anyways, um, they shot it in the pool. What they did is they filled the pool with like uh gallons of milk to make it milky. Oh they lit it, they put a tarp over the top, and they built a little hull in the driveway with a hole in it. They put it in the they sank it, and then they had uh the stunt coordinator. I have all the names here, but I'm not gonna read them right now. They had the stunt coordinator double for Richard Dreyfer's Hooper, because you see that you see his back. Yeah. They made a cast of the head, of course. That was done weeks before this. And uh they shot it in the pool.

Susie 48:06

It sounds so hokey. Isn't that funny?

Shawn 48:08

It sounds and then it's the biggest jump in the movie. Yeah, it's the big and so Verna Fields says, like one of her, it's her greatest edits, she said. And she said it's one of her most satisfying moments is going to the theater and seeing people jump out of their seats. In fact, Spielberg and Carl Carl Gottlieb, who co-wrote the uh screenplay with Spielberg, uh, they used to drive to different movie theaters and walk in just to see that scene and see the crowd jump out of their and then they'd leave. Yeah. Which I just think is hysterically.

Susie 48:35

How is this crowd?

Shawn 48:36

Yeah.

Susie 48:36

Yeah. Well, it yeah, it got me for sure.

Shawn 48:40

So I just wanted to talk about your story because it was classified, that whole story you just told for years. And then before the movie came out, just I mean, sorry, before the movie was put together to be shot, it became unclassified. So they found out about that story and they used it. They used it for Quentin for Jaws. So a lot of relatives went to see of the USS Indianapolis people. They went to see Jaws, not knowing anything about this. And then can you imagine finding out, hey, that's the ship grandpa was on?

Susie 49:07

Right.

Shawn 49:07

And finding out that he he might have died, you know, he might have died right away in the you know explosion, or he might have been eaten by a shark.

Craig 49:15

Like apparently people were, you know, obviously very Yeah, because that would have been 30 years after the fact. Yeah, if he came out. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Susie 49:24

So you've come to terms with your own picture of how your grandparent or how your parent died, and then you see it on the big screen in a totally potential.

Craig 49:35

Well, and that's what's so credible with these these survivors, right? They go on to live basic normal lives in the best way that they can and uh have families, and then you're right, then they have their children and and grandchildren and who then are finding out that what you because a lot of these guys refuse to talk about it. The the PTSD was so intense that they just they just couldn't do it. A man named McCoy organized a reunion and a lot joined and and and met up and they they found it quite relieving to be able to talk about it because they don't talk about it with others and their family.

Susie 50:13

They don't understand.

Craig 50:14

It's a very classic thing in war where you just you you you keep it with your your band of brothers, so to speak, you know. And uh but others refuse to go to these reunions because they just didn't want to go there.

Oscars Marketing And The First Blockbuster

Shawn 50:28

So let's just quickly uh I just want to talk about Jaws here and its impact. Um, I did say it won three Oscars, right? So one one for editing and it won for sound, and it won, of course, Johnny Williams, one for best score.

Susie 50:42

Score.

Shawn 50:42

He'd only done one other movie with Spielberg before that, um, I think. So this would be a second, second movie of a very long and prosperous relationship for them both. But um, it was nominated for best picture, of course. It didn't win, and Spielberg wasn't nominated for best director. I never understand that. Yeah, that still happens today when movies are nominated for best picture, but the director isn't included in that. That's weird. I never get that. And if there's ever a picture that you look back on that a director should have won for, it's like and all the stuff they went through.

Susie 51:12

All the firsts, all the out in the ocean and the creating creation of the shark and working with the it was financially though.

Shawn 51:19

I mean, this is this is the first summer blockbuster. What are you gonna say?

Craig 51:22

I was gonna ask you, uh, do they can they do this posthumously? Like, do they give out um Oscars? Oscars uh post-death.

Shawn 51:31

Well, like honorary, yeah, but they don't, you don't, you know, yeah, okay. Like, you know, remember um because I know I Spielberg's obviously still alive, but I'm just wondering if it's still he's got an honorary too, and his and his best directors for Shinder's List and Private Ryan. I think those are the two he's got.

Susie 51:46

Yeah.

Shawn 51:47

Um, but this movie comes out and it's the first movie in history during a box office of over a hundred million dollars, and it grossed over two 260 million, and you know what? Uh most of that came in the first month.

Susie 51:59

Wow.

Shawn 52:00

You know, that's how fast that movie.

Susie 52:02

Do you know who much the movie costs?

Shawn 52:05

I don't know how much it costs. I know they spent like $700,000 on marketing, which was insane. So it was the first big movie to be marketed on television, like to be ads, to have ads.

Susie 52:16

Well, that's where I feel like my memory of this movie started is the TV ads.

Shawn 52:21

Because what's the what's the voiceover? It's like, it's like God created the devil and gave him Jaws. Yeah. I think that was the uh that was the voiceover thing. But yeah, so print ads, TV ads, like we they bombarded, they opened in like God, so many theaters, like 400 theaters, like that weekend, which was a lot for the 70s, like 400 in in the States. And so it was a uh uh the first big that's why they call it the first big summer blockbuster.

Susie 52:50

Wow. And he didn't win.

Shawn 52:53

Well, he wasn't nominated either.

Susie 52:55

He wasn't nominated even.

Shawn 52:56

So and also the other thing is so uh it started shooting May 2nd, 1974. That was the initial shoot schedule, it was for 55 days. It went 160 days.

Craig 53:07

Still, that's amazing though. Like isn't it?

Shawn 53:09

160 days because the shark wasn't working.

Craig 53:11

Yeah.

Shawn 53:12

And the ocean moves and well, and you can imagine trying to do shots out in the middle of the ocean where they're supposed to be alone out there, and uh, you got a boat coming through the background. You can't control that stuff, right? Like way out there.

Craig 53:23

The only other time I saw Jaws was in Universal Studios.

Shawn 53:26

Yes, of course.

Craig 53:29

My my my dad took me in and the universal, like where the children and it's still stuck in my head. Like, yeah, because you're like, oh my god, I'm gonna see it for the first time. I don't know if obviously it's not the exact same shark, but I think it's pretty much a replica.

Shawn 53:41

It's a replica. They used to have the actual Bruce, because they call it's named after Steven Spielberg's lawyer, Bruce Renner. Funny. Yeah, Bruce Renner. Uh and so they used to have it there and it was hanging. And I got a picture, I brought it, it's on my phone, I'll show it to you.

Susie 53:55

Yeah.

Shawn 53:55

Of me next to it. Because like it's it was one of the original mechanical ones they use, but they're all gone now.

Susie 54:01

Oh, yeah.

Shawn 54:02

You want to hear another funny little story is that that ri that uh Universal Studios, yeah, of course, Steven had his office there, Spielberg had his office there. Oh, is that right? So he for a while, I mean, I'm sure now it's gone, you know, but he used to take his little golf cart because they'd have the shark and they had the orca, the orca, the boat, yeah, there. Yeah, so he would go down there when nobody was there, and he'd go sit on the orca. Oh, and he'd go sit inside the orca in the little pilot house and and like kind of reminisce and probably clear his head and think about how traumatic and difficult that shoot was, and he got through it and what happened because of it. Yes, and then it was this little touchstone, right?

Susie 54:37

Yeah, so he came down 28 years old. Like, that's not crazy.

On Set Feuds And Improvised Magic

Shawn 54:41

So he came down there one day and it was gone. And he's like, he phones like the manager a lot at university, where's the orca? Where's he going? He goes, Oh, we we it was rotting, so we just split it all up with axes and chainsaws. No, no, no kidding. He goes, and Spielberg said he's never been more angry in his life. And he said, I feel so sorry for the guy on the other end of the phone because he lost it on them. So it's gone, it's gone, the orca. But um, I I just thought that you can imagine Spielberg driving his little golf cart down there and like just having his little moment on the boat, his memories of it all. So, you know, and then you know, you've got the whole Richard Dreyfus, Robert Shaw feud that went on through the whole shoot because they did not get along, and so they had such traumatic stuff. You know, Dreyfus came in, the young hotshot kid, film actor. He just did a movie called uh The Apprenticeship of Daddy Kravitz, which is shot in Montreal, actually. And it was this big movie that came out. So he brought all of the double-page New York Times ads saying how great he is and all, and he brought it, and that right away apparently rubbed Shaw just the wrong way. So they were constantly going at it. Yeah, and Shaw, like I said, liked to drink, and so he would always challenge Dreyfus to things. He'd go, I bet you can't climb to the top of that mast and dive into the water. And Dreyfus, of course, go, Of course I can do it. Of course I, you know, and he was constantly pushing him.

Susie 56:01

Like the relationship in the book, right? So he's kind of tiny, a little method going on there. Like each other, yeah.

Shawn 56:06

No, they do. So I find that funny, and there's so many stories about Dreyfus and Shaw. They wrote a musical about it. Um The Shark is Broken, it's called. And it's about those two, and they're fighting. And his Robert Shaw's son is in it, and he looks exactly like him. It's incredible. Wow. Oh funny. So it's very, very interesting. Um, another quick story is them, you know, Shaw bringing uh you know bourbon to the set, going, trying to get on the boat and going, Richard, help me out, handing him the drink so he can get on. And Richard goes, You really want me to help you out? Throwing the person into the water. And then that did not go over well. So the next scene, you know, Dreyfus character Hooper is getting water, you know, they're spraying water in his face, like to make it look like the ocean. Shaw comes up with the hose and hits him right in the face. And it's that says, That's the only day I lost my sense of humor. Oh. And apparently he left the set, and it was a big yeah, yeah. Anyways, there's all sorts of stuff. It's it's like a diamond out of a coal, coal, you know, out of a piece of coal, this movie. Because none of it should never have worked with all of the problems and everything squeezing and squeezing and the overshoot and the schedule going, but it allowed them time to improvise and come up with all these beautiful little scenes. Yeah. Like the kids at the dinner table. Yeah. Right? Remember and him, you know, with the dinner table scenes and all that with the little kid.

Craig 57:29

Yeah.

Shawn 57:29

Yeah. That's all out of improv. Totally.

Craig 57:31

And that speaks to the ingenuity and the creativity of these guys, right? And just in the same way that the rescuers had to think for their own, they didn't, they didn't get approval from the superiors. They just did it. They did, they they made calls and it and it worked.

Shawn 57:43

Yeah.

Craig 57:44

It's like that's I think that's what I love about these stories, is that they just kind of bring out that beautiful human element. And I'll, you know, I'll never forget that story what you just told. You know, I grew up with a little pool. And uh, you know, I can imagine here you are, you're a high school kid, you're in a video class, and you're like, you're just making do with what you have, and there's the joy around producing stuff like that. You never forget, and it does result in some pretty cool effects to the point where it's actually in a movie. Yeah that's 50 years old that stands the test of time.

Shawn 58:15

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Uh, I was a little worried when we started doing this because uh we did a little intro for this last week, a little teaser. And and then I got a note from Craig saying, You keep mentioning we're gonna need a bigger studio. What does that mean? And I could hear all the worldwide Jaws fans just groaning. I'm like, yeah, it's the most iconic line uh in the movie. We're gonna need a bigger book.

Craig 58:41

I was two years old when it came out.

Shawn 58:43

Yeah, but you're how old are you now? I know, no it's excuse, no. That line is in the top five of all the most famous lines of all time. I'm looking at you, kid, here's looking at you, kid, all that crap.

Craig 58:53

To be fair, I'm the history guy. You're the guy into cinophilia.

Shawn 58:56

And then and then I go, uh, uh, I do the Spanish ladies song. It's like, what you start singing this song. And I'm like, does this guy know? Do you know it's about a shark?

Susie 59:05

Do you know to our listener out there? I would love you to read the book and then watch the movie. And um it it was a it was a great combination. And I feel like I I would uh do a rewatch of the movie now after reading the book.

Craig 59:23

Well, Sean, I I would like to finish off if you're gonna make fun of me, I'll make fun of you.

Shawn 59:27

I've got uh another 400 pages, but we we didn't get through because you know we had a lot of look at look at that.

Craig 59:34

Holy damn. Was there anything else you wanted to include?

Film Craft Legacy And Shark Fallout

Shawn 59:38

Yeah, I don't know. Well, we'll do we'll save this for the bonus edition DVD director's cut. I really going back and watching the movie again, and you I've seen it so many times, but what I love about Jaws is that you always find something else every time you watch it. And it's one of those films that when it comes on TV, even you have to watch it, no matter if it's half an hour in or five minutes left. Yeah, you you kind of have to have to watch it. But what I love is the first kind of two acts, it's there's three acts in this movie. It's like it's like Moby Dick, it's like a like a classic novel. And the beginning, the first two acts have so much activity and so many people in it. Beaches full of people, ferry loads of people coming in. And then the townspeople, meetings, I mean the third act, there's three people in it. Yeah, three people in the ocean, in the ocean, in the middle of nowhere, and you feel that. Yeah, and the other thing is Spielberg makes a point of keeping those three people in a lot of the same shots. They're singles, they're right, single shots. They're not clipping from person to person to person all the time. You get this feeling that it's just them and you don't feel the crew. No, you just feel the the characters. Yeah, so there's there's shots where you'll see somebody up on the on the top and then two people on the bottom, and it's one shot. And I love that. It just creates this feeling of isolation and that they're alone and that they're there, there's nothing there to help them. Yeah, you know what I mean. If you get too fancy and you're cutting and you're doing all this stuff like they would today, you wouldn't get that. You know, so that's really important to me. And I just seeing it again over here with you guys, I really zoned in on that. And I loved a lot of the little shots. Like I loved the first thing that we talked about, I remember, is saying, God, they got a nice house. I love that house. Isn't that funny? When you're kids, you don't, you don't know, you don't even think about that. Now we're old, right? We're like, look at the house, right? What do you think that goes for? Yeah. What do you think the square, the the square space is of that?

Craig 1:01:30

Ocean view, the little chair there. You can sit there, read a book, and like the beauty of that area.

Shawn 1:01:34

You notice in those house scenes, there was always this ominous little shot it'd be in the background of the ocean. There's so many little scenes where you he pulls the ocean in, but it's in the background. Yeah, and these are things I I never picked up on. That's why I love this film, is it is really is a it's a it's a director's master class.

Craig 1:01:53

Don't you feel like as you mentioned that those scenes he always gave space for breathing, like 100% just just so you can sit in it and feel it. And so you actually it just seems so appropriate based on the movie itself.

Shawn 1:02:06

100%. And that is it's unlike anything else because it's Spielberg.

Susie 1:02:10

Yeah, and but he pulls you in so you feel like you are right in it with like you're right there.

Shawn 1:02:18

And you know, this movie has influenced everybody that's come up in the industry. Everybody mentions this movie, all of the directors that are on top right now, or not even on top, just out there doing it. Yeah, creative people, effects people, sound people, editing people all mention this film. Yeah, they are all you look at M. Night Shamalin and Steven Soderbergh, and I mean, I could you could go on and on and on and on. Yeah, they all mentioned this film. So the real only negative thing about Jaws, and we love the film, and it, you know, is that it really cast a sort of dark shadow on sharks.

Susie 1:02:53

Yeah.

Shawn 1:02:54

Yeah. People now thought that sharks were out to get them, you know, when you know, and the most dangerous predator on the planet. And and if you look at the actual number of shark attacks versus the amount of people that actually go on the water, it's very low.

Craig 1:03:09

That movie scared the shit out of me.

Shawn 1:03:12

And uh and happy 50th for that movie.

Craig 1:03:15

I wouldn't I wouldn't have cried if I saw a shark getting killed. You know, even recently, you know, orcas, orcas are the most fearsome predator in the ocean, and they just play with these great whites. I mean, they they go after their livers because they're just apparently like really flavorful and fatty. And so there is a greater predator out there than even a shark.

Shawn 1:03:35

Than the great white, and that's why the boat's name the orca.

Craig 1:03:38

Yeah, and the orca exactly.

Shawn 1:03:40

Well, it's pretty amazing that 50 years have passed.

Craig 1:03:42

Yeah, there's not many movies that when you're in your 50s can take you back to being 10 years old again.

Shawn 1:03:48

Immediately take it back. Immediately and have that sense of wonder.

Craig 1:03:50

And it's a lovely fucking thing.

Shawn 1:03:52

It stands up and it's uh it's in my top five minutes of classic. So it is. So happy birthday, happy 50th judge. Yeah.

Craig 1:04:00

Thank you, Spielberg.

Shawn 1:04:01

Thank you, Mr. Spielberg.

Goodbye Plus A Strange Outtake

Craig 1:04:03

See you guys. Good night. See you later. I'll get into it. Okay. It's been a little while. I'm ...kind of nervous and excited at the same time, which aren't good things when you're trying to be performing.

Shawn 1:04:36

So okay, thanks for that. Let me tell you about teaching.

Susie 1:04:45

Uh FYI shot. Thanks.

Shawn 1:04:50

And by the way, nervous and excited is performing. That is that is it. That is what it is.

Craig 1:04:58

All right, okay, fuck fine.