Great White Death

The shaping of this documentary revolves more about general mysteries of oceanic life than about its stated subject, the great white shark, but the film never lacks for compelling subject matter, with host and narrator Glenn Ford ably commenting upon the action, much of which is of a creature that has been hunted into a condition of scarcity approaching extinction. Obviously released to exploit the enormous success of the feature film JAWS, this effort rests firmly upon its own considerable merits, derived for the most part from creative underwater photography by a primarily French crew and from its disparate settings in several seas and along coasts of South Africa, Australia, Central America, and the Solomon Islands. Included is the sole known 16mm. record depicting an immediate aftermath of a shark attack upon a person, an Australian scuba diver who is seen being lifted aboard in an obvious state of shock with his right leg largely severed as a tourniquet is applied, a horrifying scene not ameliorated in the least by an up-beat interview made years later with the victim. The film maunders about, consistently well-read by Ford, frequently leaving its stated subject of the great white to focus in turn upon others of the 27 man-eating shark species, including the fascinating hammerhead; a deadly Pacific sea snake; various folkways of Solomon Islanders; with frequent digressions into the ecologic importance of our oceans, and while editing is at times ineptly effected, there should never be consideration of a viewer's lack of desire to concentrate upon the screen.

Great White Death (1981)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Legendary actor Glenn Ford had a rather unique and unexpected 1981 as he appeared (for some reason) in the slasher film HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and he also did the narration for this film, a documentary on the ocean. I say an ocean and not great white sharks because while there's some footage of the sharks the documentary also goes into other territories including seals, various forms of fish and other items you might find in the ocean. Rating documentaries from long ago is rather difficult because I'm sure many would watch this and say it's old-fashioned and they'd be correct. I'm sure many people would also see this and be bored because they've seen so much better on Shark Week and various other programs. With that being said, I think it's only fair to judge a project for when it was released and when you consider this was 1981 the thing actually looks pretty good. The best moments in the film are when we actually get to see the sharks in action and this includes many scenes where people are in a cage and the shark comes up to them. There's also a rather stunning scene where a shark is caught up in a rope and another one comes up and appears to be trying to help it. Ford does a pretty good job with his hosting and narrating duties even though this was probably just a few hours of work for the actor.

Don't even think for a second that the obscure "Great White Death" is a hidden treasure, or even a remotely recommendable animal-horror flick. It's not. Not even for shark-aficionados. It' a wildly uneven and umpteenth attempt to further cash in on the tremendous successful of "Jaws" and other giant killer animal movies of the 70s, except the makers of this junk were too lazy or too uninspired to come up with a story. Instead, they put together a bit of cool shark-attack stock footage and a lot of dull & irrelevant padding footage and labeled it as a documentary. Glenn Ford, trying to earn a few extra bucks in the autumn of his career, appears a couple of times in a fake library and pretends very hard to be interested in sharks. His job as narrator is largely limited to emphasizing that our oceans still homes many mysteries, and that we've only just begun to explore the wonders of nature underwater. He also uses a lot of superlatives and several sensational terms to refer to sharks, even the non-dangerous species, like "predators", "sea-monsters" and "pirates". Pirates?!? There certainly are a handful of interesting moments, notably the testimonies and reconstructions of actual Great White attacks, or the trivia insights given on Black December (1957-1958). Too bad there also are many irrelevant and dull sequences (like endless ritual African tribe-dances) and footage that'll cause shark fanatics a lot of heartache (the sight of numerous beautiful animals caught in fishnets).

The other review here really covers the movie really well. It's completely right when you read that it unfortunately doesn't cover that much Great White territory. Probably because Great Whites were just beginning to be truly studied at that time. Watching GWD I kept thinking I knew everything that was being said. It's true. If you've watched loads of Shark Week and National Geographic etc., none of this should be really that informative. But it is a rare documentary that has it's own unique footage. So you will be seeing new footage of sharks, and creatures of the sea. Which is good enough for a person who loves the ocean and it's inhabitants. There are a couple fantastic scenes that I really enjoyed, one being a shot of a Great White eating another Great White, and of course the footage of a man who's brought on board only moments after a shark attack. At first I thought it was fake, but looking over it again, it does seem pretty real. Especially getting a look at that pale and shock-induced face he was sporting. Like I said previously, it's nothing new for shark enthusiasts, but it does do the trick in entertaining the viewer.