Word: sharked
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Bruce was fairly programmed for mishap. In order to use him, a twelve-ton steel platform, to which the mechanical shark was attached by a 100-ft.-long umbilical cable, had to be sunk to the ocean floor. The controls on the platform were operated by 13 technicians wearing scuba equipment...
Bruce sank when he made his debut. During his second test on water his hydraulic system exploded. "That shark," says Producer Brown, "was like owning a yacht. We had to dredge a place for it to rest, we had to park it, guard it, stroke it, hide it from the public." A special makeup man in scuba gear would plunge into the ocean to add more blood to Bruce's teeth and gums or administer a touch-up to his tender plastic tissue. Bruce's skin tended to discolor and deteriorate in the salt water...
...integral to the suspense of the last third of the film. Back at Universal City, executives fretting about the budget suggested that the boats be written into the action. "We couldn't do it," Spielberg says. "You have three guys out in a rickety boat, hunting a killer shark. What kind of menace is there going to be if there is a family of four only 50 feet away, having a picnic on their sailboat...
That creature is, of course, the shark. Doubtless one of the reasons it has long exercised such a powerful hold on the imagination of everyone (except, until recently, novelists and movie makers) is that it attacks not merely out of the depths of the ocean but out of the depth of prehistory as well. The other great source of its near mythic fascination is that despite ever-growing attention by marine scientists, there is precious little reliable information about sharks. It is not even known how many varieties of sharks there are (best estimate: around 300) or how many...
Ranging in size from six inches to 60 feet, all shark species lack skeletons. Essentially they are masses of cartilage covered by a remarkably tough hide (in itself a nasty rasplike weapon in the larger species). Theirs is an indiscriminating appetite. Everything from a keg of nails to a 100-lb. sea lion has been found in shark entrails. The biblical Jonah was there too, today's marine scientists theorize. Sharks are condemned by nature to a life without sleep or even rest. The reason is that they lack the swim bladders of the bony fishes, which permit...