The four-part docuseries Murf the Surf (MGM+) tells the very American, very twisty tale of Jack Murphy, a champion surfer-turned-jewel heister and worse, who eventually found God through incarceration. Combining present day interviews with archival footage and animation, Murf the Surf is directed by RJ Cutler, whose work includes the Vogue Magazine documentary The September Issue and the groundbreaking 2000 reality series American High.
MURF THE SURF: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “I’m Jack Murphy, and we’re putting together a film that would assist a writer doing a movie script or a documentary or a book.” Murphy, who died in 2020, sounds exactly like his younger self, who then surfaces in black-and-white footage as the “bronzed beach boy” of newspaper headlines.
The Gist: Murphy was raised in Carlsbad, California, and spent his youth on the beach, where surfing became second nature. He had a complicated relationship with his domineering, always criticizing father, and escaped his influence first by attending the University of Pittsburgh on a tennis scholarship, and by 1955 landing in Miami Beach, where he became a cabana boy and beach club fixture in a scene that included plenty of partying, money, and celebrities. Murphy also helped popularize surfing on the east coast, won numerous competitions, and owned his own surf shop, which he burned down for the insurance cash before joining up with a gallivanting crew of Miami jewel thieves. The story of their exploits was splashy and TV-ready, says Nate Scott of USA Today in Murf the Surf. It “was an archetype of what true crime would become.”
Off-camera interviews with Scott, Meryl Gordon of Vanity Fair, author John Margolis, and Jack Murphy himself as well as other reporters and authorities involved fill in the narrative of Murf the Surf as the action moves from his “picture book,” yet troubled childhood in California – he had “an empty hole inside him he’s trying to fill his whole life” – to the beachfront Miami party scene of the late 50s and early 60s, and Murphy’s eventual turn toward a life of crime. Archival footage – newsreels, media scrums on airport tarmacs, film stock of surfing and life in midcentury America – combine with animated sequences that depict the heisters’ after-hours work, where Murphy’s comfort with the water and athletic build came in handy when evading authorities. “In South Florida,” Murphy recalls, “this whole band of thieves that I was a part of now stayed very, very busy.”
It was when they took their show on the road that things got really serious. A 1964 robbery of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City bagged the thieves hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stones, including a prized 563-carat sapphire known as the Star of India. Chatty accomplices and their flamboyant lifestyle attracted police attention, and Murphy and the crew were soon arrested by the FBI. But the media ate up their story with a spoon, and soon they were attached to headlines like “Gem Thief Gets $380,000 Haul” and “Bronzed Beach Boys Had Girls All Fluttery.”
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The visual aesthetic of the animated sequences in Murf the Surf recall Archer, a reference driven home by how they characterize the midnight heist portions of Jack Murphy’s life story, with ropes and pistols and lots of cantering up exterior walls. But the story of Murphy and the Star of India jewel heist actually became a movie itself, 1975’s Live a Little Steal a Little, also known as Murph the Surf, which co-starred Robert Conrad and Don Stroud as the jewel thieves.
Our Take: Murf the Surf features a subtitle – “Jewels, Jesus, and Mayhem in the USA” – and it summarizes not only the life of Jack Murphy, as his career in thievery evolved toward even worse crimes, which eventually deposited him in prison and delivered him to the Lord, but also the life cycle of a country that just loves this stuff. Early on, footage returns us to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, an event that writers interviewed characterize as having draped a pall of grief over the entire country. The idyll of Camelot was gone, the American people were themselves scarred, and life was not a picture book. All of which fed the fascination with the story of handsome beach club dudes committing a brazen and lucrative nighttime burglary and basically using their resulting limelight to hide in plain sight. It was the crafting of a celebrity out of the everyday ether, an ability America has only gotten better at in the ensuing decades. How Murf the Surf will further evolve that notion over its four episodes is one of the most intriguing and compelling elements of this docuseries.
As for Murphy, in the fashion of Americans for centuries, he seems to equate his criminal activity with an innate compulsion for action. “If you’re bored, you’re dull,” he says his father used to declare, and the complete exclusion of dullness from his life inspired Murphy to join a jewel heist crew and swim across Biscayne Bay as police shot at him from boats and choppers. That any of this could lead to people or even himself getting hurt never figures into the equation. The mayhem was personally fulfilling spectacle, and it’s that same attitude – a gilded, twisted version of the American dream – that drove the resulting headlines.
Sex and Skin: Early sequences of Murphy and his cohorts doing it up in the Miami Beach party scene of the early 1960s include plenty of people jiggling and luxuriating in bikinis and board shorts. But those carefree visuals give way to a darker side.
Parting Shot: “I didn’t think he had it in him. I thought a burglar is a burglar. When he did that? To young girls? That was shocking to me.” As Murf the Surf sets up its second episode, Jack Murphy appears in police custody with a patched-up face, while the bloody bodies of two bikini-clad young women are captured in crime scene photos.
Sleeper Star: Former Miami PD police lieutenant Jim Kelly, who had his share of run-ins with Murphy, gives his unvarnished opinion of the high-profile life he was leading with his jewel thief pals. “He was kinda like a folk hero, if you will, and that kind of pissed me off. He wanted to be known as the baddest fucker in the world. America loves the bad guys. John Dillinger, Billy the Kid – assholes like that.”
Most Pilot-y Line: “Couple nights later, I’m sitting in the bar, wondering how I’m gonna pay my tab. And the guy came in and put an envelope in my pocket, and there was $15,000 in it. That was more money than I’d ever seen in one wack.” The first heist Jack Murphy participated in netted $350,000, according to the papers, and he was instantly hooked on the thrills and cash. “I said, ‘Hey listen, I sleep in a bathing suit. Call me anytime.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. As nascent true crime sensations go, a fan of the genre could do worse than Jack Murphy and the chronicle of Murf the Surf. From the media euphoria surrounding them, to themes of criminality and personal redemption, Murf the Surf goes for a goofy-footed ride on the dark side of the American dream.
Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges
