How the legendary USS Indianapolis speech was written for JAWS.

Have this framed on my kitchen wall 😍

Watching this Jaws scene is what started then-6th-grader Hunter Scott on a project which eventually led to the exoneration of Captain McVay (who had been court-martialed for the loss of the USS Indianapolis) in 2000. From 1998 NYT article: cc @JimLaPorta

Isn't it amazing to hear how things come about?

All I know is I could have used that guy for a few papers in college!

Indianapolis In the year 1945 this world entered a new age, when a radioactive monster was released from it’s cage, to display this power, we needed a world’s stage, and we also needed the enemy to remain engaged. This is the moment where my story begins, my name is Seaman, Herbert J. Robinson, I was stationed afterdeck, where the giant propellers spin, and as I recall that day was slowly coming to an end. We had departed Tinian island almost two days ago, and what had been delivered there was being kept strictly need to know, our orders were to ready the ship, we had a long journey to go, and it was during this voyage when torpedoes hit us from below. In a sense, the attack brought the sheep to slaughter, it took less than twelve minutes for us to lose our steel marauder, and I didn’t believe I would ever again see my baby daughter, as I jumped off the boat and joined 900 men in open water. Unbeknownst to me, no distress signal had been sent, and I want to express the severity of what exactly that meant, there were many injured among us, and their wounds carried a scent, as I held onto some floating debris next to a man named Quint. That first night was like living a nightmare, and the mind can only handle so much before it falls into despair, I lowered my head and kept repeating the Lord’s Prayer, there were sharks among us now, of that we were all aware. Once the sun rose, we were down 100 men, as one scream would stop, then another would soon begin, I knew I was going to die, I just didn’t know when, Quint said to me that he would never put on a life vest again. By the third day, our numbers had quickly gone down, there were less than 400 of us still floating around, I had given up any hope that we would ever be found, but then I saw something in the sky that was quite profound. It was a PBY-Catalina, and she never looked so sweet, our doomed expedition was now known to the entire fleet, the joy I felt at that moment made the suffering seem obsolete, but the look on Quint’s face conveyed a message of defeat. They began pulling us from the sea, one man at a time, the anticipation was building as we both waited in line, I was almost out of the water, I had only to reach up and climb, but then I felt searing pain as something clamped down on me from behind. A thirteen foot tiger shark had just bitten me around the waist, then a fountain of blood gushed out of my body in haste, the monster killing me almost seemed to relish the taste, as it bit down harder and my legs were displaced. To the sailors of the Indianapolis, I give you my applause, as the last Navy search vessel slowly withdraws, I wish I could have told Quint to give the town of Amity some pause, because thirty years from now he will encounter an even bigger set of Jaws… R.H.

I loved Jaws as a kid, it terrified me, but it's not until you watch it a few times as an adult that you realise what a great, great movie it is.

One of my favourite monologues of all-time, superbly delivered

What a fabulous documentary

TIL. Always another layer of inspo to unearth @AmandaMilius

A lot of people out there may not know that John Milius also did one of the most famous dialogue polishes in cinema history when he wrote the infamous “Did he fire 6 shots or only 5?” speech in Dirty Harry. No question John Milius was a top-tier screenwriter in the 1970’s.