Blue Water, White Death

Besides seeing Blue Water, White Death in a theater in 1971, I first saw a preview of segments of this film some months before its premiere at the first Our World Underwater film festival in Chicago. The preview was narrated live by cameraman Stan Waterman and he took questions after the preview. Everyone in attendance was sitting on the edge of their seats, because no one had ever filmed Great White Sharks before.

In today's world of dozens of documentaries on Great White Sharks and Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, the shark footage can seem a little tame. But the significance of this film shouldn't be minimized. At the time this expedition took place, very little was known about Great White Sharks and most experts of the day thought that getting in the water with a Great White was instant death. This film (with its accompanying book, Blue Meridian), were Peter Benchley's inspirations in writing Jaws.

This excellent film would be a worthy addition to any wildlife documentary aficionado's library, if only it were available on VHS or DVD (I'm just glad I taped it off of TV many years ago). With all the retread junk that's being released on DVDs today, why isn't a great film like this available?

Ahoy... I was in Wood's Hole, MA this weekend and was fortunate to be at the screening of this flick in HD. It is an interesting film, with many memorable moments and beautiful ( and sometimes horrifying ) photography and images. The film standing alone is passable, and seems campy within our current cultural frame of reference. However, watching in context, you realize this was the ancestor to many of those glossy animal shows we all love. In general, shoddy craftsmanship technically, but very real. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the genre. In a nutshell, it's allegedly where "Jaws" came from. Dare I say it 're-mystifies' the Great White Shark, and our re-introduction is a brutal experience.

An interesting film and seafaring adventure of an expedition tracking a great white shark through hundreds of miles of open sea spanning three continents. The search finally bears fruit some 83 minutes into the film which has a leisurely pace throughout and captures the feeding frenzy of white tips on whale carcasses, and barracudas also manage to get screen time for several minutes. Peter Gimbel and his crew are frustrated by their failure to spot a great white but finally get lucky at Dangerous Reef on the south coast of Australia. Here, Gimbel is finally rewarded with great footage of the huge fish. Shark cages are used to film the great white that seems more intent on the cage and the divers inside than the bait dangled before it. An Australian diver relates his run-in with a great white in the ocean, detailing his injuries and his miraculous escape. The footage of the underwater sequences throughout the movie is expertly done.

I saw this movie when I was 12. It was the movie that sparked my interest in sharks and the ocean. I have dived with 1000's of sharks in my life and I remain devoted to their salvation. I would pay a lot of money for a copy of the film or a tape of it. I have tried to locate it a number of times. This film needs to be saved and preserved for all time. It is the most important film on the subject of sharks ever made because it is the first of it's kind. It contains historic footage of whaling and the first search and filming of The Great White Shark. This movie is why I became a diver and a dive instructor. This movie needs to be seen by people for years to come.

This phenomenal documentary, acclaimed for inspiring JAWS, chronicles the first ever expedition to capture the Great White Shark on film. Peter Gimbel and his team of world famous underwater filmmakers, Ron and Valerie Taylor, and Stan Waterman, travel from Durban, South Africa to South Australia in this tension-filled journey for the ocean's most dangerous creature. The underwater shots in this film are spectacular, and the team captures the mystery and awe surrounding the Great White with artistry and clarity. I found an LA Times review below, be sure not to miss its DVD debut! "This handsome, high-adventure presentation is something special: a film that is actually for the entire family. Crammed with beautiful vistas and exciting underwater scenes." – Los Angeles Times