Indianapolis: Ship Of Doom

Blue Ribbon, Emily Award, and Grand Prize winner at the American Film & Video Festival and winner of a Silver Award at the Houston International Film Festival, Indianapolis: Ship of Doom tells a harrowing true story of a complex chain of events which began in 1945 when the U.S.S. Indianapolis carried the world's first atomic bomb to Guam and then set sail for the Philippines, and ended in 1986, when former Captain William B. McVay III took his own life on the steps of his Litchfield, CT home. Combining simulations and interviews, the documentary traces the tragic story of the Indianapolis, which was torpedoed on July 30, 1945, and sank within 15 minutes. For five days hundreds of men were literally lost at sea, prey to sharks, hallucinations, and drowning. Only by happenstance did an overhead plane happen to sight the oil slick from the sunk ship, and swoop closer to discover 316 men still alive of the 1,200 man crew. Had the story ended there, the fate of the Indianapolis would have been just a horrific footnote to the closing days of WWII. But the sinking of the Indianapolis raised serious questions. Namely, why was the news delayed by two weeks in the newspapers? And, why wasn't anyone concerned with the Indianapolis's whereabouts? In the aftermath, a cover-up, trumped-up court-martial, and string of connections going back to Captain McVay's father (also a high-ranking naval officer), would illustrate how petty vindictiveness and the need to protect upper-echelon naval officers could destroy one man's life while maintaining the facade of integrity for the United States Navy. A real-life A Few Good Men, this documentary succeeds because of its tremendously potent story. As a film, on the other hand, it's often irritating. Filmmaker Bill van Daalen's style owes more to A Current Affair than quality documentary filmmaking, and narrator Dan Barton's breathy narration of lines like "the two ships slid quietly through the sea in a shimmering dance of death" is borderline risible. Still, the story is such an inherently tragic one, that it ultimately overrides the faintly ridiculous efforts of the filmmakers to offer tabloid filmmaking. Highly recommended. (See FLORENCE, ITALY: OLD BRIDGES, NEW FRIENDS for availability.)