Find out how the movie “Shark!” with Burt Reynolds used a completely bogus sensationalist article on his poster!
In 1968, seven years before Jaws, director Samuel Fuller filmed a shark film with Burt Reynolds on Isla Mujeres in Mexico. Except that a serious accident will occur, costing the life of a stuntman, devoured by a shark. In any case, that’s what the poster for the feature film will say, except that the reality is a little less true!
Collider recalls the information and we have also traced this dark affair. It all starts from an unsigned article from LIFE Magazine published on June 7, 1968, in which the media wrote:
Excelsior Shark Attack… or not?
A great white shark appears, passing through the protective nets stretched around the underwater movie set. (…) Then the shark turns to stuntman Jose Marco, 32, who was [hors des cages censées protéger les équipes], and tears his abdomen, spilling blood everywhere. During the melee, twice the team fired spears, to no effect, while the shark devoured its victim. It was the screams and the impacts on the cages that caused his escape. Marco died in hospital two hours later.
A shark inspired the creature from Alien: Covenant!
At the time, no one was offended, until the film came out. The poster partly repeats the magazine article, the promotion therefore becoming quite gloomy… and above all, several shots from the feature film seem to be identical to the images of the tragic incident immortalized by LIFE in its report!
A real killing included in the film?!
From then on, one question is on everyone’s lips: the Shark team! would she have kept the footage of the killing in the film?!
TIME / Excelsior
The TIME article and an excerpt from the film
Except that Dewey Bergman, journalist at Skin Diver, a magazine specializing in diving, goes there to study the veracity of this whole story. His article is published in November 1969a month after the release of the film under the title “The Great Shark Scam”.
He goes back through the story, expressing surprise that the Mexican media did not cover the matter, and that the author of the article did not work at TIME. The magazine reportedly bought the story and photos. Contacted by Bergman, TIME was forced to admit the “fake” and wrote in a press release cited in the Skin Diver article:
Excelsior
Burt Reynolds
The (almost) mea culpa of LIFE
“What we consider to be a series of highly unusual photos is, in fact, false. A certain number of our readers, sometimes more qualified in this area than the people on our teams lead us to believe. LIFE carried out an investigation about of this incident without success, except to know that it did not take place on Isla Mujeres”.
In the meantime, Shark! had used this false article as an advertisement, placing it on his poster with the slogan: “A realistic film becomes too realistic!” even though the victim might never have even existed!
Excelsior
Excerpt from the film poster
The producers will put the film together behind the back of Samuel Fuller, who will deny the project in its entirety. The same producers will re-release the feature film after the success of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, this time under the title Man-Eater!