Retrospective: Shark!(1979)
Wow, the anniversary edition blu-Ray of John Landis masterpiece “Shark!” is a feast for the eager viewer. The horror-drama-comedy still manages to thrill and shock after forty years.
On its face the idea of making a dark comedy about an incredibly horrific moment in American History is absurd and in bad taste, but Landis makes it work.
Relaxing at a beach resort after a stressful party convention Woodrow Wilson (Murray Hamilton) is a strutting peacock of a man, a vain, petty tyrant who delights in abusing his staff all the while delivering pious platitudes to the press.
When the President hears of the shark attacks only a few miles down the coast he figures that a mile-long swim offshore to show his fearlessness will be just the ticket to win re-election, his cabinet of cronies and hanger-ons decide that’s an excellent idea, with only the no-nonsense Col. House (Robert Stack) suggesting it might not be the best idea. Of course Wilson ignores his warning so House assigns two secret service agents (Roy Schneider and John Belushi) to covertly follow the President on his swim to protect him from any nearby sharks.
We all know what happens: despite the best efforts of our two heroes Wilson is graphically torn to ribbons by the man-eater in full view of the press. The actual attack is played for sheer horror, with Landis playing the wish of the audience to see such a terrible person gone with the raw brutality of being killed by a shark.
Of course Schneider and Belushi’s characters are fired, only to redeem themselves at the climax when they rescue a young boy in a creek from the man-eater and succeed in killing it, becoming heroes.
Some elements of the movie haven’t aged well: the shark is obviously mechanical and the scene with Wilson casually ranting about the “inferiority of the ‘n-word’ race” while being attended to by black servants is more awkward and cringe now then funny.
On the other hand the rest of the movie is as much of a masterpiece as it’s reputation suggests: Schneider’s straight-man performance contrasts perfectly with Belushi’s wildness, the funny bits are hilarious and the scary bits still terrifying.
Even historians have made their peace with the movie, most now accepting it as a good piece very loosely based on history. Sure, there are occasionally grumbles from scholars that the movie’s version of Wilson has replaced the historical one in the public imagination (No, Wilson did not really say “Our great white nation must be safe from great white sharks”) but when even the Woodrow Wilson Memorial in New Jersey hosts a screening and round table discussion with historians it’s time to drop the crusade against it
With John Landis tragic death in a helicopter crash shortly after release it’s a shame we never got to see what else he had up his sleeve but with his one film he cemented himself into movie and American history.
(From a timeline where Woodrow Wilson is killed during the 1916 Jersey shark attacks)
