Incredible Suckers (Mike deGruy, 1995): United States

Reviewed by Lynn Montgomery. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

February 4th 2012, crisp sun, feathery breeze. My husband and I were walking on the beach. A friend approached with tears in his eyes. “We lost one of our own. Mike deGruy. In Australia. Helicopter crash. Working on a  Cameron movie. Pilot, too. On take-off.” Then he shook his head and continued walking. A few minutes later, we saw more friends, with more fragments of the sad news.

Mike deGruy was a naturalist, filmmaker, adventurer, world class husband, father, brother, son, and friend.

Our children went to school together. I’d see him on campus. Mike didn’t walk, he bounded. Last Thursday, at the opening of the SBIFF when Roger Durling took the stage to dedicate this year’s film festival to Mike Degruy, I noticed the same thing about Roger. He didn’t walk onto the stage – he bounded. Roger and Mike were good friends. Mike was the curator of the ReelNature series at the festival. Mike was also the brain and heart behind Field Trip to The Movies. Over the years, thanks to Mike’s films, thousands of Santa Barbara children experienced the magic of celluloid cephalopods, voracious vampire squid, and countless other creatures that make the child in all of us sit up in our seat and say, “wow, look at that!”

So in the spirit of the bounding grade-schooler that was Mike, that is Roger, and if we are lucky, still is a big part of all of us film lovers, I’d like to offer this review of Incredible Suckers as a tribute to Mike deGruy in the form of an anagram.

M   is for Mobile Alabama where on December 29, 1959, Mike deGruy was born.  He was one of four brothers who swam at the local pool. Their father was the diving coach. Mike was one of the best divers the country had ever seen. He even beat Greg Louganis but was injured and didn’t go to the Olympics.

M is also for Mimi, Mikes wife, the love of his life, who watched the movie with us and took questions from the audience. Mike would be proud.

I    is for Incredible Suckers, Mike’s film about cephalopods, or head-foot creatures.  Plunging into the deep recesses of the sea, Mike brings you face to face with squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. When I saw the movie I experienced several sit up in my seat – “Wow, look at that!” moments, and so did the ten 6th graders in my row. How do you casually process the information that some cuttlefish are capable of tens of thousands of different camouflage patterns? The lowly chameleon can only mange a few dozen. And then there’s the vampire squid from hell that has rows of razor sharp spikes on its belly.

And lets not forget the giant squid with the volleyball sized eye, the largest eye in the world.  Incredible Suckers was made almost 20 years ago. Getting up close and personal with a giant squid was considered the Holy Grail of natural history filmmaking. Mike didn’t live to see it happen, but thanks to the ReelNature series he created, SBIFF will present the premiere of Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real, a coproduction between The Discovery Channel and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Company). I’ll be there, hopefully with a house full of six graders, gasping, “Wow, look at that!”

K   is for kelp.  Mike has dove all over the world, from under Antarctica’s ice to the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific with their lagoons and dramatic vertical drop offs, but one of his favorite dives is right here in the Channel Islands in early November when crystal clear waters reveal the charms of the California kelp forests full of elephant seals and bat rays.

E   is for Enewetok Atoll. This is where, on April 2, 1978, Mike and a friend were diving and taking photographs in a little known area of the Enewetak Atoll. Mike was violently attacked by a Grey Reef shark, ripping the top of his right arm off and leaving him bleeding profusely in the shark infested waters of the lagoon. His diving partner was also attacked by the same shark.

Mike’s blog sight tells what happened next: “They were 10 miles out, no land in sight and there was nobody in their 21 foot boat to help. Needless to say, things were grim for the two researchers as they were separated at the surface – left alone to deal with a dire situation in the middle of a lonely ocean. It is still a mystery as to why Mike was not eaten that day. Enewetak is famous for its enormous population of sharks. Mike was bleeding heavily, hundreds of yards away from an empty boat, his diving partner nowhere to be found, rough seas surrounding him and he was severely injured. It was the fact that he was 100% convinced he was going to die that saved his life. When you are already dead, there is no reason to panic, so Mike just rolled over on his back, used his left hand to clamp off the blood flow from his right arm, and slowly kicked toward the boat, waiting for the inevitable – even imagining where the first attack would hit him. The second attack never came and when Mike finally reached the boat, he saw blood on the gunwales his friend had made it back he called up and was helped into the boat. Two years and eleven operations later, he is fine, only a partially operating right hand and ugly scars left as reminders.”

D is for documentaries. Mike made more than two dozen documentaries over three decades.

In 2002 his cinematography on “The Blue Planet: Seas of Life,” won both an Emmy and an award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Mike also documented threats to the coral reefs, the devastating impact of El Niño on California’s marine mammals, and the dwindling shark populations in the Great Barrier Reef.

In 2005, working with James Cameron, Mike supervised underwater photography for “Last Mysteries of the Titanic.” He ran the submersible cameras that roamed the ghost ship in search of artifacts not seen since The Titanic sank in 1912. I watched this film with my son, and there were many sit up in your seat, “wow” moments.

James Cameron called Mike deGruy “one of the ocean’s warriors — a man who spoke for the wonders of the sea as a biologist, filmmaker and submersible pilot, and who spoke against those who would destroy the sea’s web of life.”

E   is for “human exclamation point.” At Mike’s celebration of life ceremony, more than a thousand people came to pay their respects. Mike’s brother, Frank, told the audience that a pastor in Mobile Alabama, where Mike grew up,  called Mike’s life “one big human exclamation point!” As the service ended, family and friends walked to the ocean’s edge and threw in rose petals in honor of Mike’s deep love for the sea. Then in the sky, directly overhead, Mike punctuated the celebration – a giant exclamation point formed!

Exclamation point cloud formation on the mesa as crowd gathered to celebrate Mike.

G  is for National Geographic. I grew up on the magazine. One of the high points of every month was getting the magazine in the mail. I read each issue cover to cover. This year National Geographic is celebrating 125 years of exploration. Mike deGruy was there go-to guy for underwater films. He made The Octopus Show, Tempest From the Deep, Sharks on Their Best Behavior, and many more. Everything that was always magical about the magazine  continued to be magical through Mike’s camera lense. 

R is for Roger Durling. Roger tells the story of how Mike would come into the French Bulldog in Summerland (now the Café Luna) and talk movies with friends. One day he told Roger, “You can do this! You can run the Santa Barbara International Film Festival! You’ll be great!” And after Durling got going, Mike told him, “HEY! Let’s make a nature series for the kids!” and the Reel Nature series was born. And, “HEY! We can get David Attenborough!” and Attenborough came to Santa Barbara. And, “HEY! We can get James Cameron!” and James Cameron came to Santa Barbara. And so did Al Gore, and “HEY! Let’s do a Field Trip to the Movies!” which started at the Museum of Natural History, and then moved to the Lobero Theatre, and finally to the 2,000 seat Arlington, where Mike would always get the kids in the audience to jump and shout with glee at the marvelous wonders of nature.

U is for Under The Sea, the song from Little Mermaid that over a thousand voices sang at Mikes memorial.

The seaweed is always greener
In somebody else’s lake
You dream about going up there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here on the ocean floor
Such wonderful things surround you
What more is you lookin’ for?

Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it’s better
Down where it’s wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin’
Full time to floatin’
Under the sea

Y  is for Yes.  At the opening night of this year’s SBIFF, Roger Durling bounded onto the stage. He dedicated this year’s festival to the memory of Mike deGruy. He spoke of Mike’s spirit and how Mike said it’s always important to get the audience to say ‘yes’ to a film, to get them to buy into it.” So Roger told the sold out crowd at The Arlington Theatre to shout a resounding YES!  I think we jumped our cue, that’s how eager we all were to celebrate the magic of movies, the magic of Mike.

Mike deGruy RIP