The “USS Indianapolis” speech, impeccably delivered by the legendary Robert Shaw in Jaws, is regarded as one of the finest monologues in motion picture history. However, the debate over just who wrote the monologue is mired in murky waters.
In the blockbuster film helmed by then-budding director Steven Spielberg, which swam into theaters 47 years ago today, Shaw’s Quint reveals to Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) that he is one of the 316 survivors of the actual World War II USS Indianapolis disaster. The Indianapolis sank in July 1945 after being torpedoed by an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine during the Indianapolis’ top-secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components.
There seems to be no debate that it was the late Howard Sackler who conceived (in an uncredited script rework) the “Indianapolis” moment, which when he penned it was only two paragraphs, Spielberg explained previously in a making-of featurette. The director recognized that the scene, if done right, could be an extraordinary character study of Quint and a pivotal scene in the film.
And thus begins the debate.
In the featurette, Spielberg says he asked John Milius, who contributed dialogue polishes, to take a crack at the speech as it needed to be beefed up in order for the director to capture the moment as he saw it in his mind’s eye.
Milius is said to have dictated the speech “over the phone,” which resulted in a 10-page monologue, “which basically is very close to what’s in the movie,” Spielberg said, adding that Shaw took the beast of a speech and cut it in half. “It’s Milius’ words, and it’s Shaw’s editing,” the director says in the featurette.
However, Jaws co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb has taken issue with the Milius version of the production lore.
In a previous interview with The Writer’s Guild Foundation (watch below), Gottlieb contended that it was actually Shaw who wrote the “USS Indianapolis” speech and that Milius had been given undue credit over the years thanks to his friendship with Spielberg…….