The wealthy Peter Gimble, model for Mr. Hooper of Jaws, hires a ship and a crew and staffs it with a truly mixed bag of professional underwater naturalists and photographers (and one folk singer) and sets off in pursuit of the great white shark. By the film's midpoint, cast and crew are in open mutiny. Peter Mathiessen, hired as voyage historian, thought the product of the trip would be the world's most expensive home movie but it is considerably more interesting, detailing in surprisingly vivid terms some real highs and lows for a trip that is part carnival, part nature study. Contrary to expectations, the most striking sequence involves not a great white shark but a group of sharks (primarily blues) feeding on a sperm whale carcass. By exiting the shark cages and photographing the feeding up close, the divers raised the bar considerably on this kind of filming. There are also memorable moments as when Stan Waterman and Valerie Taylor struggle through high seas to get back aboard the boat and Mr. Waterman promises the cameraman that if he ever films them struggling like that again without helping them, he will find himself in the water with them. The sequences involving the great white are not surprisingly very striking. I suspect there was a little after-action photography added to the sequence showing Peter Lake trying to cut the rope holding the great white to his cage. A minor point in a great film. There are also some great moments under the credits, my favorite being Stan Waterman describing how to drive off a shark with a SCUBA knife. A real treat if you ever get to see this.
